Wafer-scale fabrication of glass-FEP-glass microfluidic devices for lipid bilayer experiments

Multilayered film for the controlled formation of freestanding lipid bilayers

A freestanding lipid bilayer or black lipid membrane is a powerful tool for studying ion channels and for biophysical studies of other membrane proteins under controlled chemical and physical conditions. Even though the lipid bilayer has been considered an excellent sensing platform to detect diverse single molecules from nucleotides to cells, it is not yet widely used, mainly due to its low stability and the expertise needed for membrane formation. To ameliorate the issues of conventional membrane formation techniques, we report a novel layered film that consists of a nonporous layer sandwiched between two porous layers to facilitate bilayer formation. Moreover, the absorption of excess solvent present in the membrane precursor solution can be achieved by the film, enabling control over the membrane formation process. Through this layered design, we could obtain an ideal film that has a reduced and controlled membrane formation time (<30 min) and a sufficient bilayer lifetime (3 h) for ion channel studies and biosensing.

Integrated microfluidic biosensing platform for simultaneous confocal microscopy and electrophysiological measurements on bilayer lipid membranes and ion channels

Combining high-resolution imaging and electrophysiological recordings is key for various types of experimentation on lipid bilayers and ion channels. Here, we propose an integrated biosensing platform consisting of a microfluidic cartridge and a dedicated chip-holder to conduct such dual measurements on suspended lipid bilayers, in a user-friendly manner. To illustrate the potential of the integrated platform, we characterize lipid bilayers in terms of thickness and fluidity while simultaneously monitoring single ion channel currents. For that purpose, POPC lipid bilayers are supplemented with a fluorescently-tagged phospholipid (NBD-PE, 1% mol) for Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching (FRAP) measurements and a model ion channel (gramicidin, 1 nM). These combined measurements reveal that NBD-PE has no effect on the lipid bilayer thickness while gramicidin induces thinning of the membrane. Furthermore, the presence of gramicidin does not alter the lipid bilayer fluidity. Surprisingly, in lipid bilayers supplemented with both probes, a reduction in gramicidin open probability and lifetime is observed compared to lipid bilayers with gramicidin only, suggesting an influence of NBD-PE on the gramicidin ion function. Altogether, our proposed microfluidic biosensing platform in combination with the herein presented multi-parametric measurement scheme paves the way to explore the interdependent relationship between lipid bilayer properties and ion channel function.

Whole Teflon valves for handling droplets

We propose and test a new whole-Teflon gate valve for handling droplets. The valve allows droplet plugs to pass through without disturbing them. This is possible due to the geometric design, the choice of material and lack of any pulses of flow generated by closing or opening the valve. The duct through the valve resembles a simple segment of tubing, without constrictions, change in lumen or side pockets. There are no extra sealing materials with different wettability or chemical resistance. The only material exposed to liquids is FEP Teflon, which is resistant to aggressive chemicals and fully biocompatible. The valve can be integrated into microfluidic systems: we demonstrate a complex system for culturing bacteria in hundreds of microliter droplet chemostats. The valve effectively isolates modules of the system to increase precision of operations on droplets. We verified that the valve allowed millions of droplet plugs to safely pass through, without any cross-contamination with bacteria between the droplets. The valve can be used in automating complex microfluidic systems for experiments in biochemistry, biology and organic chemistry.

Multilayered film microreactors fabricated by a one-step thermal bonding technique with high reproducibility and their applications

We report the versatile uses of multilayered polyimide (PI) film microreactors with various functions including pressure tolerance, three-dimensional mixing and multistep membrane emulsification. Such PI film microreactors were fabricated by a simple one-step thermal bonding technique with high reproducibility. Upon bonding at 300 °C for 1 hour, the thin and flexible film microdevices could withstand pressure up to 8.6 MPa and 16.3 MPa with PI adhesive film or fluoropolymer adhesive, respectively, due to differences in wettability. The hydrophilic and hydrophobic microchannel devices were used to generate monodisperse oil-in-water (O/W) and water-in-oil (W/O) droplets, and polymer micro/nanoparticles at a high generation frequency. A monolithic and chemical resistant film microreactor with a three-dimensional serpentine microchannel was used for the selective reduction of ester to aldehyde by efficient mixing and quenching in a flash chemistry manner, within a several 10(1) millisecond time scale. Furthermore, a novel multilayered film microreactor for organic-aqueous biphasic interfacial reactions was devised by embedding a membrane layer to induce chaotic mixing in both the interface and emulsified phase by flowing through multiple numbers of meshed structures along the hydrophobic channel. This simple and economic fabrication technique significantly facilitates mass production of multilayered film devices that could be useful as a platform for various microfluidic applications in chemistry and biology.