Refine
Language
- English (9)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (9)
Keywords
- Dictyostelium discoideum (2)
- Caged compounds (1)
- Eukaryotic chemotaxis (1)
- Microfluidics (1)
- Numerical simulations (1)
- PDMS (1)
- caged cAMP (1)
- delay-differential equation (1)
- lower channel (1)
- microfluidic device (1)
Over the past decade, microfluidic techniques have been established as a versatile platform to perform live cell experiments under well-controlled conditions. To investigate the directional responses of cells, stable concentration profiles of chemotactic factors can be generated in microfluidic gradient mixers that provide a high degree of spatial control. However, the times for built-up and switching of gradient profiles are in general too slow to resolve the intracellular protein translocation events of directional sensing of eukaryotes. Here, we review an example of a conventional microfluidic gradient mixer as well as the novel flow photolysis technique that achieves an increased temporal resolution by combining the photo-activation of caged compounds with the advantages of microfluidic chambers.