Fig. 1: Digital microfluidic isolation of single cells for -Omics (DISCO).

a Illustration of the platform used for DISCO (left). Zoom-in shows the integration of a DMF device into the microscope stage (right). b Top-view schematics (left) and angled-view photos (right) of a digital microfluidic device at various stages of processing. (I) Adherent cells (red and green) are cultured on a digital microfluidic device, and a collection droplet (blue) is positioned over the array of cells. (II) A single green cell is targeted for laser lysis into the collection droplet. (III) The collection droplet (green) is queued for -Omics analysis. c Side-view schematic (left) showing two adherent cells (red and green) cultured on a digital microfluidic device (top panel), and laser-induced plasma bubble formation and expansion (middle panels) causing cell lysis to release cell contents into droplet (bottom panel). Fluorescence microscopy images (right) of a co-culture of live eGFP-expressing U87 cells (green) and tdTomato-expressing B16 cells (red) on the DISCO platform before (top) and after (bottom) lysis of the U87 cell in the center. The scale bar is 50 μm.