TABLE 1.
Major characteristics and integrated functions of the microfluidic cell culture system
| Microfluidic types | Culture form | Working volume | Parallelisation | Monitoring parameters | Function | Application |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single‐phase flow culture | Well | 1∼100 nL [14, 15] | <10 wells [20] | Fluorescence intensity [14, 15, 16, 20] | Feedback control [19] | Process development [18, 19, 20] |
| 1∼100 μL [16, 17] | 16 wells [16, 19] | OD [18, 19] | Data detection [18, 19] | Cell selection [14, 19] | ||
| 0.1∼1 ml [18] | 32 wells [17, 18] | pH [18] | Image acquisition [14, 15, 16, 17] | Long‐term culture [15, 17, 19] | ||
| 20∼40 ml [19] | 1600 chambers [15] | Flow control [15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21] | Drug test [16] | |||
| 2172∼2832 microwells [14] | pH control [18] | |||||
| Temperature control [19] | ||||||
| Channel/chamber | 0.1∼1 nL [22] | <10 chambers [23, 24, 26, 27, 28] | Fluorescence intensity [22, 23, 25, 26, 29, 30] | Feedback control [22, 27] | Process development [21] | |
| 1∼100 nL [23] | 12 units [21] | OD [21, 27] | Data detection [21, 22, 27] | Kinetic parameter determination [24] | ||
| 0.1∼1 μL [24, 25] | 24 chambers [25] | DO [21, 27] | Image acquisition [22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30] | Long‐term culture [22, 23, 27, 28] | ||
| 1∼100 μL [21, 26] | 32 chambers [29] | pH [27] | Flow control [21, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31] | Drug test [25, 26, 29] | ||
| 0.1∼1 ml [27] | 150 chambers [30] | Impedimetric analysis [26, 28] | 3D cell culture [26] | |||
| 500 chambers [22] | Co‐culture [30] | |||||
| Droplet‐based culture | Water/Oil | 0.01∼1 nL [29, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42] | Droplets Amount: | Fluorescence intensity [32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41] | Data detection [32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38] | Cell selection [32, 33, 35, 42] |
| W/O [29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40] | 1∼100 nL [33] | ≤1000 droplets [34, 39] | OD [34, 37] | Sorting [32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 42] | Drug test [29, 37, 38, 39, 40] | |
| W/O/W [41] | 2 μL [34] | 103∼105 [29, 35, 38, 40, 42] | Bright field Cell growth [40] | Image acquisition [29, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42] | Biodiversity study [29, 36, 37] | |
| 105∼107 [32, 36, 37] | Splitting, Fusion [34] | Adaptive evolution [34] | ||||
| Generating frequency: | Pico‐injection [35, 36, 42] | |||||
| 20∼100 Hz [33] | Streaking [29] | |||||
| 2800 Hz [32] | ||||||
| Multi‐aqueous | <50 pL [43, 44] | Droplets Amount: | Fluorescence intensity [43, 44, 45, 47] | Sorting [43, 44] | Cell selection screening [43, 44] | |
| Hydrogel [43, 44, 45] | 0.1∼1 nL [46] | 102 microcapsules [47] | Oil filtering and Crosslink [45] | 3D cell culture [43, 45, 47] | ||
| W/W [46, 47] | 1∼100 nL [45, 47] | >103 microparticles [44] | Image acquisition [43, 45, 47] | |||
| Generating frequency: | ||||||
| 100 Hz [46] | ||||||
| 1200 Hz [43, 44] |