A new ecology-on-a-chip microfluidic platform to study interactions of microbes with a rising oil droplet

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dc.contributor.authorWhite, Andrew R.
dc.contributor.authorJalali, Maryam
dc.contributor.authorSheng, Jian
dc.date.accessioned2022-09-07T21:40:59Z
dc.date.available2022-09-07T21:40:59Z
dc.date.issued2019-09-24
dc.description.abstractAdvances in microfluidics technology has enabled many discoveries on microbial mechanisms and phenotypes owing to its exquisite controls over biological and chemical environments. However, emulating accurate ecologically relevant flow environments (e.g. microbes around a rising oil droplet) in microfluidics remains challenging. Here, we present a microfluidic platform, i.e. ecology-on-a-chip (eChip), that simulates environmental conditions around an oil droplet rising through ocean water as commonly occurred during a deep-sea oil spill or a natural seep, and enables detailed observations of microbe-oil interactions at scales relevant to marine ecology (i.e. spatial scales of individual bacterium in a dense suspension and temporal scales from milliseconds to weeks or months). Owing to the unique capabilities, we present unprecedented observations of polymeric microbial aggregates formed on rising oil droplets and their associated hydrodynamic impacts including flow fields and momentum budgets. Using the platform with Pseudomonas, Marinobacter, and Alcarnivorax, we have shown that polymeric aggregates formed by them present significant differences in morphology, growth rates, and hydrodynamic impacts. This platform enables us to investigate unexplored array of microbial interactions with oil drops.en_US
dc.description.abstractAdvances in microfluidics technology has enabled many discoveries on microbial mechanisms and phenotypes owing to its exquisite controls over biological and chemical environments. However, emulating accurate ecologically relevant flow environments (e.g. microbes around a rising oil droplet) in microfluidics remains challenging. Here, we present a microfluidic platform, i.e. ecology-on-a-chip (eChip), that simulates environmental conditions around an oil droplet rising through ocean water as commonly occurred during a deep-sea oil spill or a natural seep, and enables detailed observations of microbe-oil interactions at scales relevant to marine ecology (i.e. spatial scales of individual bacterium in a dense suspension and temporal scales from milliseconds to weeks or months). Owing to the unique capabilities, we present unprecedented observations of polymeric microbial aggregates formed on rising oil droplets and their associated hydrodynamic impacts including flow fields and momentum budgets. Using the platform with Pseudomonas, Marinobacter, and Alcarnivorax, we have shown that polymeric aggregates formed by them present significant differences in morphology, growth rates, and hydrodynamic impacts. This platform enables us to investigate unexplored array of microbial interactions with oil drops.
dc.description.sponsorshipTis research was partially supported by grants from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) SA18-17/UTA17-001449 and SA15-19/UTA16-000545 (JS). Microfabrication equipment is partially supported from ONR under grant No. W911NF-17-1-0371 (JS). Data are publicly available through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information & Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) at https://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org (https://doi.org/10.7266/N7N58JTF, https://doi.org/10.7266/N7BV7F6V).en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipTis research was partially supported by grants from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) SA18-17/UTA17-001449 and SA15-19/UTA16-000545 (JS). Microfabrication equipment is partially supported from ONR under grant No. W911NF-17-1-0371 (JS). Data are publicly available through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information & Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) at https://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org (https://doi.org/10.7266/N7N58JTF, https://doi.org/10.7266/N7BV7F6V).
dc.identifier.citationWhite, A.R., Jalali, M. & Sheng, J. A new ecology-on-a-chip microfluidic platform to study interactions of microbes with a rising oil droplet. Sci Rep 9, 13737 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-50153-9en_US
dc.identifier.citationWhite, A.R., Jalali, M. & Sheng, J. A new ecology-on-a-chip microfluidic platform to study interactions of microbes with a rising oil droplet. Sci Rep 9, 13737 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-50153-9
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-50153-9
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1969.6/93960
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International*
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subjectecologyen_US
dc.subjectmicrobesen_US
dc.subjectmicrofluidics technologyen_US
dc.subjectecology
dc.subjectmicrobes
dc.subjectmicrofluidics technology
dc.titleA new ecology-on-a-chip microfluidic platform to study interactions of microbes with a rising oil dropleten_US
dc.titleA new ecology-on-a-chip microfluidic platform to study interactions of microbes with a rising oil droplet
dc.typeArticleen_US
dc.typeArticle

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