The Lin Lab at the University of Michigan is developing novel strategies to support future biomanufacturing, aiming to reduce reliance on sugar and ammonia as feedstocks—both of which are resource-intensive. Instead, the lab explores the use of microbial “specialist” strains capable of fixing carbon and nitrogen directly from the atmosphere: cyanobacteria for carbon and Azotobacter for nitrogen.
To identify high-performing combinations of these microbial strains, the team needed a scalable, high-throughput method to co-encapsulate and screen interacting microbial pairs. Using the Xdrop system, the lab established a workflow based on double emulsion droplets that are compatible with fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS). This enabled parallel incubation and rapid sorting of thousands of co-culture droplets based on biomass fluorescence.
Graduate student Jonathan Albrecht has used Xdrop to demonstrate co-localization and growth of E. coli and B. subtilis in droplets, as well as successful encapsulation and sorting of S. elongatus cells using the Sony MA900 Cell Sorter platform. Ongoing efforts include viability testing post-sorting and co-cultivation of phototroph–heterotroph pairs within droplets.
The work provides new tools for strain screening in synthetic biology and a path toward more sustainable microbial production platforms.
From left to right: Matthew Manion, Sungwan Park, Jonathan Albrecht, Dr. Albert Liu, Dr. Xiaoxia (Nina) Lin
“The Samplix Xdrop machine's DE50 droplets have the potential to simplify microbial co-culture screening because of their compatibility with multiple industrially relevant FACS machines. Labs no longer need microfluidic expertise to encapsulate and enrich for high performing microbial pairs."
Jonathan Albrecht, Graduate student
Learn more about the Lin Lab.
