Selecting high-growth/high-lipid producing microalgae from a mutant library through droplet microfluidics

We have developed a high-throughput droplet microfluidics-based screening platform for analyzing growth and lipid production of a large number of microalgal mutants, followed by selective restoration of strains that show enhanced growth and higher lipid production. Through an on-chip lipid staining process as well as an integrated optical detection system, growth and lipid production of a single mutated cell in droplets can be quantified by measuring chlorophyll autofluorescence and BODIPY fluorescence intensities, respectively. The performance of the developed screening platform was demonstrated by examining a randomly mutated unicellular microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii library.

20th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences, MicroTAS 2016

Kim, H. S., Han, S., Guzman, A. R., Sobahi, N., Thapa, H. R., Browne, D., ... Han, A.

Kim, HS||Han, S||Guzman, AR||Sobahi, N||Thapa, HR||Browne, D||Tatli, M||Hsu, S||Stern, DB||Devarenne, TP||Han, A

Selecting high-growth/high-lipid producing microalgae from a mutant library through droplet microfluidics Conference Paper