New Approaches to Protein Engineering with HTS
Droplet microfluidics technology, based on reaction miniaturization into picoliter- to nanoliter-sized compartments, is revolutionizing a wide range of diverse scientific disciplines by facilitating the ultra-high-throughput analysis of samples at the...
Sec22b: A Critical Regulator of Plasma Cell Maintenance
Plasma cells (PCs) play a crucial role in humoral immunity by continuously producing and secreting antibodies. However, the mechanisms governing their secretory function and survival remain poorly understood. This knowledge gap hampers the development...
FRET-Based Antibody Discovery using Droplets
As monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) gain regulatory approval and widespread acceptance as a leading therapeutic option for the treatment of human diseases, there is a pressing need for new techniques and technologies that facilitate their rapid development...
Directed Evolution of High-yield Enzyme-producing Bacteria
Industrial enzyme preparations largely rely on microbes because of their ability to produce enzymes in bulk at a low cost, eco-friendly nature, ease of handling, and adaptability for product modification. Strategies incorporating genetic and process...
High-Throughput Droplet Sorting Assists the Directed Evolution of Glucosamine-Producing Enzyme
Glucosamine (GlcN) is an aminomonosaccharide that is produced naturally in the body from glucose and an amine. As a precursor to proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans, the building blocks of cartilage, GlcN plays a key role in the maintenance of joint...
Barcoding-Free Single-Cell Sequencing
High-throughput single-cell sequencing has greatly advanced the field of genomics by allowing researchers to investigate cellular heterogeneity. However, the use of cell barcodes for identifying individual cells is limited by the cost and technical
Functional Screening using Fluorescence-Activated Droplet Sorting
Functional screening is a selection and sorting strategy based on the activity of a target molecule in its biological context. Depending on the nature of the target molecule, functional screening assays can be designed around diverse readout principles...
Ultra High-Throughput Single-Microbe Sequencing Using Semi-Permeable Capsules
Droplet microfluidic technology is an innovative approach that has revolutionized many areas of research, including microbial analysis. By compartmentalizing individual microbes into droplets, this approach enables researchers to perform highly sensitive...
Spheroid Engineering in Microfluidic Droplets
Spheroid engineering in microfluidic droplets is an emerging area of research that combines microfluidic technology with tissue engineering principles to create 3D cell cultures. Spheroids are aggregates of cells that are cultured in vitro to mimic
Droplet-Assisted Cell Culture Method Improves Isolation of Functional Gut Bacteria
Recent developments in multi-omics technologies have spurred renewed research interest in resolving the complex contributions of the human gut microbiota to the maintenance of health and development of disease. Among the myriad chronic diseases that
Single-Cell Analysis Reveals Non-Random Genetic Reassortment in Influenza A Viruses
Seasonal influenza is a major public health threat worldwide due to frequent antigenic variations that lead to the emergence of novel and potentially fatal flu strains. The segmented RNA genome of influenza A viruses (IAVs) enables viral evolution through...
Droplet-Assisted High-Throughput Screening Selects Most Efficient Cell Factories
The efficient secretion of heterologous proteins by engineered bacterial host cells has both therapeutic and commercial applications, such as in the production of antibodies, growth factors, nanobodies, and high-quality protein food ingredients. Metabolic...
Selection of RNA Polymerase Mutants via Directed Evolution
The production of synthetic DNA molecules, such as single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) oligonucleotides, is essential to applications in molecular biology and bioengineering, for instance, as donor DNA for CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing, as scaffolding for DNA nanotechnology...
Using Microfluidics to Explore Cell-to-Cell Interactions
With the ability to easily separate, manipulate, tag, and sequence individual cells, droplet microfluidics technology has contributed to the rapid expansion and maturation of single-cell biological research. At the same time, the very small liquid volumes...
RNA cytometry of single-cells using semi-permeable microcapsules
The profiling of individual cells within a heterogeneous cellular population is vital to advancing research across numerous biological and biomedical fields. Unlike bulk methods, single-cell techniques can capture the full diversity of the cellular landscape...
Heterogeneous Activation of Inflammatory Response by Virus-Like Particles in Macrophages
The inflammatory response of macrophages is a principal component of innate immunity that assists in the clearing of harmful stimuli, such as pathogens and irritants, from the body. The inflammatory response may also play a role in the development of...