Table 2.

Advantages and disadvantages of droplet-based microfluidics for selected applications.

Selected Applications	Droplet Microfluidics
	Advantages	Limitations
Single-cell sequencing	Rapid (21,000 cells/h) [47]	Requires specific microfluidic device and instrument for droplet sorting
PCR	Sensitivity (1–1011 copies per reaction) and accurate (<2% standard deviation) [22]
ELISA	Reduction of sample and reagent volume, decrease operation time, no need for purification steps [74]
Single-cell sorting	Reduced amount of reagent (10 cells/mL), faster sorting time (100,000 droplets/s) [113]
Directed evolution	Reduced amount of reagent (<6 pL) and Increased efficiency (1 × 108 reactions/day) [81]
Drug screening	Increased the number of drugs and cell samples tested (80,000 cells/screening), low reagent consumption (<3 mL) [145,148]