Xdrop and Xdrop Sort support high-throughput functional analyses in a single-cell format. See how capturing individual cells or DNA fragments in double-emulsion droplets can revolutionize your workflows.
Xdrop and Xdrop Sort compartmentalize cells in highly stable, picoliter-sized, double-emulsion droplets for culture, analysis, and fluorescence-based sorting.
Uniquely, two different cell types can be captured in one droplet, allowing for cell–cell interaction assays, including cell-killing assays.
What could you achieve if you boosted the speed and accuracy of your functional analyses of living cells?
Xdrop and Xdrop Sort change how you analyze cells by transforming bulk functional analyses and bulk screening into rapid and accurate assays with a unique single-cell format.
Pictured: Co-encapsulated lymphoblasts and natural killer cells with staining to show the successful immune reaction. Top left: bright field image; top right: CFSE staining for natural killer cell; bottom right: eFluor670 staining for lymphoblast; bottom left: PI staining to show dead cell
Xdrop and Xdrop Sort produce double-emulsion droplets that act as picoliter-sized reaction chambers or microenvironments for your cells, making it possible to:
Xdrop has proven performance in a range of single-cell format applications, including:
Both Xdrop and Xdrop Sort have proven performance with microbial cells, including
Pictured: Bright field (top) and merged bright field and fluorescent (bottom) images of cellulase-expressing Escherichia coli cell in a double-emulsion droplet (provided by the Schwaneberg Group, RWTH Aachen University)
Xdrop generates two sizes of double-emulsion droplets: DE20 and DE50. The Xdrop DE20 Cartridge generates DE20 droplets, which are ~20 µm in diameter (volume: ~1.6 picoliters) and are suitable for microbial cell workflows. The Xdrop DE50 Cartridge generates DE50 droplets, which are ~50 µm in diameter (volume: ~100 picoliters) and are suitable for mammalian cell workflows. Xdrop Sort generates DE20 droplets and can also sort them based on fluorescence signals.
Pictured; Xdrop DE20 Cartridge channels where the reagents mix to form ~20-µm diameter droplets.
Xdrop DE20 and DE50 droplets encapsulate cells along with their growth medium. Small molecules, such as carbon dioxide and water, can diffuse across the double-emulsion shell. However, large, complex molecules, such as cytokines, remain inside the droplet.
This means:
Essentially, cells can happily stay in DE20 or DE50 droplets for the duration of your experiments!
Validating CRISPR edits and identifying CAR cassette insertions are essential to cell and gene therapy research. Xdrop and Xdrop Sort have protocols that support highly targeted long-read and short-read sequencing of DNA. The workflow involves encapsulating DNA for targeted enrichment in double-emulsion droplets, then sorting to capture the region of interest. Downstream sequencing reveals unintended on-target and off-target rearrangements that other methods cannot easily find.
