Microfluidic Plates for Bacteria Cells

The B-Series microfluidic plates keep bacteria cells in a single focal plane, allowing you to follow and induce cell events during high magnification analysis over many generations.

Features and Benefits:

• Elastic trap sites holds cells in single focal plane for 16+ hours
• Laminar flow switching between 5 inlet solutions

The B04 plates utilize a microfabricated silicone ceiling with a height similar to bacteria cells to restrict their growth in a single focal plane and maintain x,y position over time. Each chamber contains 6 tapered trap heights to maximize loading efficiency of various cell sizes. The B04A plate has heights of 0.7, 0.9, 1.1, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 µm.

Continuous perfusion of culture medium to the cells ensures a suitable growth environment for long term experiments. Typical experiments run for 4-16 hours on the microscope stage, enabling single cell tracking for over 10 doublings. The six inlets to each chamber allow solution switching experiments during time lapsed analysis. The highly laminar flow results in a rapid and complete solution change in under a minute.

Growth of E coli (BL21) in the B04 microfluidic plate. Cells were perfused with LB medium and imaged on a 100X oil immersion phase contrast objective. Cells courtesy of Tim Lu, MIT.