Fig. 1
From: Ultra-sensitive digital quantification of proteins and mRNA in single cells
Integrated microfluidic device for performing ultrasensitive single-cell protein/messenger RNA (mRNA) measurements. a, Top: The schematic of one unit of assay chambers is shown; chamber sizes are not to scale. The single cell is trapped in chamber II. The stepwise assay protocol (I–V) results in a digital PCR (dPCR) readout, where counting of positive droplets allows direct quantitation of proteins or mRNA in the sample. Bottom left: The chip image with food dye loaded in different channels, the scale bar is 2 cm. Bottom right: The microscope image of a single human embryonic kidney cell trapped in chamber II, the scale bar is 50 µm. b Step-by-step workflow of microfluidic-digital proximity ligation assay (µ-dPLA). More information on the chip design and fabrication can be found in the Methods section
