Dataset Information

Electrocoalescence of Water-in-Oil Droplets with a Continuous Aqueous Phase: Implementation of Controlled Content Release.

ABSTRACT: Droplet-based microfluidics have emerged as an important tool for diverse biomedical and biological applications including, but not limited to, drug screening, cellular analysis, and bottom-up synthetic biology. Each microfluidic water-in-oil droplet contains a well-defined biocontent that, following its manipulation/maturation, has to be released into a physiological environment toward possible end-user investigations. Despite the progress made in recent years, considerable challenges still loom at achieving a precise control over the content release with sufficient speed and sensitivity. Here, we present a quantitative study in which we compare the effectiveness and biocompatibility of chemical and physical microfluidic release methods. We show the advantages of electrocoalescence of water-in-oil droplets in terms of high-throughput release applications. Moreover, we apply programmable DNA nanotechnology to achieve a segregation of the biochemical content within the droplets for the controlled filtration of the encapsulated materials. We envision that the developed bifunctional microfluidic approach, capable of content segregation and selective release, will expand the microfluidic toolbox for cell biology, synthetic biology, and biomedical applications.

SUBMITTER: Frey C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7144163 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Electrocoalescence of Water-in-Oil Droplets with a Continuous Aqueous Phase: Implementation of Controlled Content Release.

Frey Christoph C Göpfrich Kerstin K Pashapour Sadaf S Platzman Ilia I Spatz Joachim P JP

ACS omega 20200323 13

Droplet-based microfluidics have emerged as an important tool for diverse biomedical and biological applications including, but not limited to, drug screening, cellular analysis, and bottom-up synthetic biology. Each microfluidic water-in-oil droplet contains a well-defined biocontent that, following its manipulation/maturation, has to be released into a physiological environment toward possible end-user investigations. Despite the progress made in recent years, considerable challenges still loo ...[more]

PMID: 32280896

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Project description:Most of the microbial degradation in oil reservoirs is believed to take place at the oil-water transition zone (OWTZ). However, a recent study indicates that there is microbial life enclosed in microliter-sized water droplets dispersed in heavy oil of Pitch Lake in Trinidad and Tobago. This life in oil suggests that microbial degradation of oil also takes place in water pockets in the oil-bearing rock of an oil leg independent of the OWTZ. However, it is unknown whether microbial life in water droplets dispersed in oil is a generic property of oil reservoirs rather than an exotic exception. Hence, we took samples from three heavy-oil seeps, Pitch Lake (Trinidad and Tobago), the La Brea Tar Pits (California, USA), and an oil seep on the McKittrick oil field (California, USA). All three tested oil seeps contained dispersed water droplets. Larger droplets between 1 and 10 μl revealed high cell densities of up to 109 cells ml-1 Testing for ATP content and LIVE/DEAD staining showed that these populations consist of active and viable microbial cells with an average of 60% membrane-intact cells and ATP concentrations comparable to those of other subsurface ecosystems. Microbial community analyses based on 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing revealed the presence of known anaerobic oil-degrading microorganisms. Surprisingly, the community analyses showed similarities between all three oil seeps, revealing common OTUs, although the sampling sites were thousands of kilometers apart. Our results indicate that small water inclusions are densely populated microhabitats in heavy oil and possibly a generic trait of degraded-oil reservoirs.IMPORTANCE Our results confirmed that small water droplets in oil are densely populated microhabitats containing active microbial communities. Since these microhabitats occurred in three tested oil seeps which are located thousands of kilometers away from each other, such populated water droplets might be a generic trait of biodegraded oil reservoirs and might be involved in the overall oil degradation process. Microbial degradation might thus also take place in water pockets in the oil-bearing oil legs of the reservoir rock rather than only at the oil-water transition zone.

Dataset Information

Electrocoalescence of Water-in-Oil Droplets with a Continuous Aqueous Phase: Implementation of Controlled Content Release.

Publications

Electrocoalescence of Water-in-Oil Droplets with a Continuous Aqueous Phase: Implementation of Controlled Content Release.

Similar Datasets

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