Yeast enrichment using microfluidic deterministic lateral displacement (DLD)

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2025

Authors

Barbosa, VB (Author) Other; Cerqueira, L (Author) Other; Miranda, JM (Author) Other; Azevedo, NF (Author) FEUP

Journal

Title: Microchemical Journal

Vol. 218

ISSN: 0026-265X

Publisher: Elsevier

Indexing

Scopus - 0 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-01A-4F1

DOI: 10.1016/j.microc.2025.115499

Abstract (EN): Microbial contamination in the food industry presents a public health risk and cause product deterioration resulting in economic losses. The standard detection relies on culture-dependent or -independent methods coupled with microorganism enrichment, which may take several days. Alternatively, microfluidics allows target microorganism enrichment from heterogenous mixtures at high throughput within several hours. In the present study, we evaluate microfluidic deterministic lateral displacement (DLD), which allows passive size-based separation for microbial enrichment. Therefore, we developed microchannels with different DLD array lengths (short array [1988 ¿m] and long array [13,698 ¿m]). The theoretical critical diameter (Dc = 3.36 ¿m) remained the same in both DLD array lengths. In order to confirm the theoretical Dc, we first assessed trajectories of fluorescence particles in the DLD array. The data from streak image photography revealed that 2 and 6 ¿m particles follow non-displaced and displaced trajectories, respectively, and as predicted by theoretical Dc. Further experiments with model microorganisms (yeast and bacteria) showed that S. cerevisiae was in general displaced, while E. coli was non-displaced, which confirms that microbial trajectories were consistent with particle counterparts. Then, the enrichment of particles and microbial cells were evaluated in both DLD array lengths. For this evaluation, the percentage of particles and cells in the expected ¿displacement region¿ of the microarrays were assessed. For the long DLD array, 100 % of 6 ¿m particles and 84.1 % of S. cerevisiae cells were recovered in the displacement region. This lower percentage of yeast cells can be partly explained by the variability of yeast size. Overall, the enrichment was substantially improved in the long DLD array compared to short and the DLD array geometry demonstrated the potential to enrich yeast over bacteria. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 0