Microbial resistance to available antibiotics remains a global healthcare challenge. Conventional approaches for diagnosing and treating microbial resistance are expensive in terms of time and equipment. Herein, we describe the use of droplet microfluidic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) chips for monitoring the growth of single bacteria over a ~2 hr period. Individual bacteria were encapsulated with reporter molecules in water-in-oil droplets and examined by laser induced fluorescence post-incubation. Imaged droplets containing bacteria show a Poisson-like distribution of the number of bacteria in droplets. Further evidence of active bacterial cell encapsulation is given by the more than factor of 2 increase in fluorescence signal from some droplets that likely contain bacteria in comparison to droplets with no bacteria. The methods highlighted in this work can be adapted for droplet microfluidic study of single bacteria and evaluation of antibiotic susceptibility.

High-throughput testing of individual bacteria growth using droplet microfluidics

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