Developing Droplet Microfluidic-Based High Throughput Screening System for Microbiology

Microbial high-throughput screening system is derived from the traditional mutagenesis screening via the use of advanced automation and instrumental analysis technologies, with the characteristics of automation, standardization, and high throughput. This greatly exceeded the limitations of manual screening in the aspect of speed, efficiency and standardization. However, at present, various types of high-throughput screening systems only from some foreign companies are based on expensive and complicated large equipment. There is no mature, small, low-cost and easy-to-handle high-throughput screening system available so far. To address this issue, we developed a mchip-based fluorescence screening systems based on designing, and assembling the modular functions droplet microfluidic chip, constructing and debugging the accurate fluorescence detection device for dynamic target via, and gathering and processing the input and output signals with LABVIEW based software. Our research would contribute to successfully building the functional, miniature high-throughput system with the detection and sort throughput in the range of 100-1000 droplet per second for the application of screening effective microbes to produce industrial enzymes and bio-based chemicals.