Lab-on-Chip platform for high-yield electrofusion in droplets

In this article, we present a microfluidic device, consisting of a microchannel structure in PDMS bonded to a glass substrate with recessed platinum electrodes. Our device is capable of successive high-yield single cell encapsulation in droplets, with additional droplet pairing, fusion, shrinkage and electrofusion of two HL60 cells inside a pico liter droplet. Electrofusion yields still remain low (1.2%), obtained results prove droplets are an interesting platform for efficient high-throughput electrofusion (100-1000 cell s-1) of cells in droplets. The application of this platform is not solely cell fusion, but can perform various other cell-based assays, like single cell analysis and differentiation assays.