Lab-on-a-chip articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cellular systems have numerous mechanisms to control gene expression. Here the authors build a Tet-On system with conditional destablising elements to regulate gene expression and protein stability, allowing fine modulation of mESC signalling pathways.

    • Elisa Pedone
    • , Lorena Postiglione
    •  & Lucia Marucci

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The glomerular filtration barrier is a complex structure in charge of renal ultrafiltration. Here the authors present a glomerulus-on-a-chip for disease modelling and high-throughput drug screening where human podocytes and human glomerular endothelial cells are separated by an extracellular matrix resembling the in vivo basement membrane.

    • Astgik Petrosyan
    • , Paolo Cravedi
    •  & Stefano Da Sacco

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Digital proximity ligation assay (dPLA) can measure proteins and mRNAs in single cells, but is not compatible with cell imaging and cannot quantify rare proteins due to a high dilution factor. Here the authors present an automated microfluidic device that combines live-cell imaging, chemical stimulation, and dPLA in a smaller reaction volume.

    • Jing Lin
    • , Christian Jordi
    •  & Savaş Tay

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The understanding of liquid-liquid phase separation is crucial to cell biology and benefits from cell-mimicking in vitro assays. Here, the authors develop a microfluidic platform to study coacervate formation inside liposomes and show the potential of these hybrid systems to create synthetic cells.

    • Siddharth Deshpande
    • , Frank Brandenburg
    •  & Cees Dekker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    DNA hydrogels have received considerable attention in analytical science but limitations still exist in the applications of intelligent hydrogels. Here, the authors describe a DNA hydrogel sensor for quantitative detection of cocaine based on the permeability change in a DNA hydrogel film.

    • Yansheng Li
    • , Yanli Ma
    •  & Yongqiang Wen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Myocardial tissue undergoes steady functional decline when cultured in vitro. Here, the authors report a protocol for culture of human cardiac slices that allows maintenance of contractility for up to four months, and show that the model is suitable for evaluation of drug safety, as exemplified for drugs interfering with cardiomyocyte repolarization.

    • Carola Fischer
    • , Hendrik Milting
    •  & Andreas Dendorfer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Single-cell detection methods are limited by the trade-off between flow rate and measurement precision. Here the authors introduce active loading, an optically triggered microfluidic system to concentrate diluted cell samples, which reduces clogging and decreases processing time in single-cell assays.

    • Nicholas L. Calistri
    • , Robert J. Kimmerling
    •  & Scott R. Manalis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC) are a pivotal component of the immune system. Here, the authors utilize single-cell microfluidics to interrogate the human pDC compartment and reveal a subset of type I IFN secreting pDCs that is regulated by stochastic gene expression and amplified by microenvironmental cues.

    • Florian Wimmers
    • , Nikita Subedi
    •  & Jurjen Tel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Contamination is an obstacle to the functioning of microfluidic devices. Here the authors exploit acoustic streaming to manipulate droplets which float on a layer of immiscible oil. This prevents contamination and enables rewritability by which different fluids can be used on the same substrate.

    • Steven Peiran Zhang
    • , James Lata
    •  & Tony Jun Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rhinovirus (RV) infections can trigger acute exacerbations of respiratory diseases. Here, Niespodziana et al. develop a PreDicta chip that identifies the culprit RV strain from small blood samples and show that RV-A and RV-C strains are associated with most severe symptoms.

    • Katarzyna Niespodziana
    • , Katarina Stenberg-Hammar
    •  & Rudolf Valenta

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A bottleneck in developing new anti-fibrosis therapies is the absence of suitable in vitro models that recapitulate key features of fibrogenesis. Here the authors develop a tissue-on-a-chip model of lung fibrosis and test the therapeutic efficacy of two recent FDA-approved drugs.

    • Mohammadnabi Asmani
    • , Sanjana Velumani
    •  & Ruogang Zhao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spatial localization of genetic information is important for tissue heterogeneity but difficult to capture with current analytical techniques. Here the authors present “Pixelated RT-LAMP”, an approach that uses parallel on-chip reactions to provide the distribution of target sequences directly from tissue.

    • A. Ganguli
    • , A. Ornob
    •  & R. Bashir

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Detecting metastatic cells in tumor/lymph node samples of breast cancer patients is extremely important for diagnosis. Here the authors develop a microelectronic biochip that detect the presence of invasive/metastatic cells in unprocessed biopsies and performs better than the current gold standards.

    • Mohammad Saeid Nikshoar
    • , Mohammad Ali Khayamian
    •  & Mohammad Abdolahad

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Implementing a nucleic acid preconcentration method can improve the sensitivity of microfluidic analysis systems. Here Friedrich et al. concentrate DNA by many orders of magnitude using pressure-driven flow, which could lead to a simple and practical microanalysis platform.

    • Sarah M. Friedrich
    • , Jeffrey M. Burke
    •  & Tza-Huei Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The complexity of fabricating and operating microfluidic devices limits their use. Walsh et al. describe a method in which circuits are printed as quickly and simply as writing with a pen, and liquids in them are confined by fluid instead of solid walls.

    • Edmond J. Walsh
    • , Alexander Feuerborn
    •  & Peter R. Cook

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The fabrication of vascularized 3D tissues requires an understanding of how material properties govern endothelial cell invasion into the surrounding matrix. Here the authors integrate a non-swelling synthetic hydrogel with a microfluidic device to study chemokine gradient-driven angiogenic sprouting and find that matrix degradability modulates the collectivity of cell migration.

    • Britta Trappmann
    • , Brendon M. Baker
    •  & Christopher S. Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Efforts to determine the effects of drugs on epithelial barriers could benefit from better in vitro models. Here the authors develop a microfluidic device supporting the growth and function of extracellular matrix-supported intestinal tubules, and evaluate the effect of staurosporine and acetylsalicylic acid on barrier integrity.

    • Sebastiaan J. Trietsch
    • , Elena Naumovska
    •  & Paul Vulto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The female reproductive tract constitutes the ovary, fallopian tubes, uterus, and cervix, but it is challenging to engineer this systemin vitro. Here, the authors develop a microfluidic device (EVATAR) with reproductive tract and peripheral tissues to replicate hormone release of a 28-day menstrual cycle.

    • Shuo Xiao
    • , Jonathan R. Coppeta
    •  & Teresa K. Woodruff

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Experimenter scoring of cellular imaging data can be biased. This study describes an automated and unbiased multidimensional phenotyping method that relies on machine learning and complex feature computation of imaging data, and identifies weak alleles affecting synapse morphology in live C. elegans.

    • Adriana San-Miguel
    • , Peri T. Kurshan
    •  & Hang Lu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Analysis of bacteria and their response to antibiotics in real time is challenging. Here the authors report a microcantilever based system that can detect and discriminate between bacteria species and, due to the ability to discriminate between alive and dead samples, measure response to antibiotics.

    • Hashem Etayash
    • , M. F. Khan
    •  & Thomas Thundat

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Studies of coral in laboratory settings are limited by a lack of reliable methods for manipulation of the coral microenvironment and monitoring of coral processes in vitro. Here the authors develop coral-on-a-chip, a microfluidic platform to enable study of coral processes at single-cell resolution.

    • Orr H. Shapiro
    • , Esti Kramarsky-Winter
    •  & Assaf Vardi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Predicting and monitoring chemotherapy response remains a challenge for glioma treatment. Here the authors show that a microfluidic device can isolate glioma-derived exosomes from patient blood and accurately determine the levels of mRNA of key enzymes important for chemoresponsiveness.

    • Huilin Shao
    • , Jaehoon Chung
    •  & Ralph Weissleder

  • Article |

    The detection of high-frequency radiation emitted by a quantum conductor is promising but current approaches exhibit limited sensitivity. Here, Jompol et al. propose on-chip radiation detection based on photo-assisted shot noise and show the response to be independent of the nature and geometry of the quantum conductor.

    • Y. Jompol
    • , P. Roulleau
    •  & D. C. Glattli

  • Article |

    Ionic liquids are widely used in diverse applications as solvents with high thermal and chemical stability. Gunawan et al.develop a protocol for fabrication of an ionic liquid microdroplet array using a soft lithography technique, and demonstrate its utility as a membrane-free high-performance gas sensor.

    • Christian A. Gunawan
    • , Mengchen Ge
    •  & Chuan Zhao

  • Article |

    Rapid, highly multiplexed molecular detection platforms may enable more specific and effective disease diagnosis. Here, a solution-based circuit is reported that enables the analysis of samples for panels of pathogens and antibiotic-resistance profiles at clinically relevant levels in less than 2 min.

    • Brian Lam
    • , Jagotamoy Das
    •  & Shana O. Kelley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Diagnostic microfluidic devices often require complicated optical systems and computers to quantify results. Here, Qin and colleagues link enzymatic biomarker detection with the displacement of ink, resulting in a device that displays quantitative results as bar graphs directly on the device.

    • Yujun Song
    • , Yuanqing Zhang
    •  & Lidong Qin

  • Article |

    Liquid crystal elastomers can perform mechanical motion triggered by external stimuli, and are light weight, flexible materials that may be integrated into micromechanical systems. Here they are used to fabricate a one-piece temperature-responsive micropump viaa microfluidic double-emulsion process.

    • Eva-Kristina Fleischmann
    • , Hsin-Ling Liang
    •  & Rudolf Zentel

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