Under-oil open microfluidic systems for rapid phenotypic antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Issue 8 (8th March 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Li, Chao; McCrone, Sue; Warrick, Jay W.; Andes, David R.; Hite, Zachary; Volk, Cecilia F.; Rose, Warren E.; Beebe, David J.
• Is Part Of: Lab on a chip. Volume 23:Issue 8(2023)
• Page Start: 2005
• Page End: 2015
• Publication Date: 2023-03-08
• Subjects: Miniature electronic equipment -- Periodicals; Combinatorial chemistry -- Periodicals; Biotechnology -- Periodicals; 543.0813
• DOI: 10.1039/d3lc00066d
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1473-0197

Abstract

Abstract : Under-oil open microfluidic systems (UOMS)-antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) integrated with a cloud lab technique provides a versatile platform for rapid phenotypic AST with a sample-to-report turnaround time in around 4 h. Abstract : Antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) remains the cornerstone of effective antimicrobial selection and optimization in patients. Despite recent advances in rapid pathogen identification and resistance marker detection with molecular diagnostics ( e.g., qPCR, MALDI-TOF MS), phenotypic ( i.e., microbial culture-based) AST methods – the gold standard in hospitals/clinics – remain relatively unchanged over the last few decades. Microfluidics-based phenotypic AST has been growing fast in recent years, aiming for rapid ( i.e., turnaround time <8 h), high-throughput, and automated species identification, resistance detection, and antibiotics screening. In this pilot study, we describe the application of a multi-liquid-phase open microfluidic system, named under-oil open microfluidic systems (UOMS), to achieve a rapid phenotypic AST. UOMS provides an open microfluidics-based solution for rapid phenotypic AST (UOMS-AST) by implementing and recording a pathogen's antimicrobial activity in micro-volume testing units under an oil overlay. UOMS-AST allows free physical access ( e.g., by standard pipetting) to the system and label-free, single-cell resolution optical access. UOMS-AST can accurately and rapidly determine antimicrobial activities [including susceptibility/resistance breakpoint and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC)] from nominal sample/bacterial cells in a system aligned with clinical laboratory standards where open systems and optical microscopy are predominantly adopted. Further, we combine UOMS-AST with a cloud lab data analytic technique for real-time image analysis and report generation to provide a rapid (<4 h) sample-to-report turnaround time, shedding light on its utility as a versatile ( e.g., low-resource setting and manual laboratory operation, or high-throughput automated system) phenotypic AST platform for hospital/clinic use.