Chapter 3 - Microfluidics for bacterial imaging

Publication date: 2016Source: Methods in Microbiology, Volume 43Author(s): L.E. Eland, A. Wipat, S. Lee, S. Park, L.J. WuAbstractMicrofluidics offers the technology for creating and maintaining microenvironments that is much needed for the microscopic study of bacteria. Over the past decade, microfluidics has been used in an increasingly large number of research studies, resulting in many important insights and discoveries. This chapter highlights some recent applications of microfluidic microscopy for bacteria, ranging from research in the engineering of bacterial systems, multispecies biofilm and microbial ecology, bacterial cell cycle and size homeostasis, to cell shape and geometry. The chapter also provides some practical information on fabricating microfluidic devices and on microfluidic microscopy, including a list of computer programmes for image analysis and two step-by-step methods, one for polydimethylsiloxane-based and the other for agarose-based microfluidic chips. With the technology becoming more advanced but also more accessible, we encourage microbiologists to take advantage of the existing microfluidic systems or design microfluidic devices that will enable them to do experiments that were not possible or too difficult to do.
Source: Methods in Microbiology - Category: Microbiology Source Type: research