A microfluidic chip for adaptation and selection of whole-cells

Adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) is a key tool in the study of evolutionary processes and biotechnology. Microfluidics have revolutionized microbial ALE as it can mimic naturally occurring microenvironments promoting the growth of biofilms alongside planktonic cells.
This poster introduces a novel microfluidic chip which is used for the adaptation of microbial cells to stressors such as antibiotics by cultivating them in consecutive microcompartments within a customizable stressor concentration gradient.[1] The chip was successfully used to adapt Escherichia coli to different antibiotics and importantly lead to the discovery of previously unknown mutations that confer resistance to nalidixic acid. The controlled change in the antibiotic concentration revealed the chip’s capacity to differentiate between persistence and resistance. Recently, the organism scope of the chip was extended to extremophiles and Thermus thermophilus was successfully adapted to kanamycin using the chip system.
The chip presented in this poster enhances the occurrence of mutations, resulting in the generation of stress-resistant strains. This kind of miniaturized chip-based ALE offers insights into the mechanism of antibiotic resistance and can be applied to adapt virtually any microorganism. ... mehr
References
[1] Zoheir, A. E., Späth, G. P., Niemeyer, C. M., Rabe, K. S. (2021) Microfluidic Evolution-On-A-Chip Reveals New Mutations that Cause Antibiotic Resistance. Small, 17, 2007166.