Dendronized fluorosurfactant for highly stable water-in-fluorinated oil emulsions with minimal inter-droplet transfer of small molecules

Mohammad Suman Chowdhury, Wenshan Zheng, Shalini Kumari, John Heyman, Xingcai Zhang, Pradip Dey, David A. Weitz () and Rainer Haag ()
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Mohammad Suman Chowdhury: Freie Universität Berlin
Wenshan Zheng: Harvard University
Shalini Kumari: Freie Universität Berlin
John Heyman: Harvard University
Xingcai Zhang: Harvard University
Pradip Dey: Freie Universität Berlin
David A. Weitz: Harvard University
Rainer Haag: Freie Universität Berlin

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Fluorosurfactant-stabilized microfluidic droplets are widely used as pico- to nanoliter volume reactors in chemistry and biology. However, current surfactants cannot completely prevent inter-droplet transfer of small organic molecules encapsulated or produced inside the droplets. In addition, the microdroplets typically coalesce at temperatures higher than 80 °C. Therefore, the use of droplet-based platforms for ultrahigh-throughput combination drug screening and polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based rare mutation detection has been limited. Here, we provide insights into designing surfactants that form robust microdroplets with improved stability and resistance to inter-droplet transfer. We used a panel of dendritic oligo-glycerol-based surfactants to demonstrate that a high degree of inter- and intramolecular hydrogen bonding, as well as the dendritic architecture, contribute to high droplet stability in PCR thermal cycling and minimize inter-droplet transfer of the water-soluble fluorescent dye sodium fluorescein salt and the drug doxycycline.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12462-5

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