The design of the microfluidic system for yeast aging analysis

<p>(a) a schematic of the replicative aging of a yeast cell. The replicative lifespan (RLS) of a mother cell is defined as the number of daughter cells it produced throughout its life. (b) The design of the microfluidic chip. The whole device consists of multiple independent modules operating in parallel. Each module is made of one main channel connected with two side channels with arrays of pensile columns. An additional bridge is added in the middle to connect the main channel with the two side channels. (c) Mother cells are physically trapped in the gap between the soft PDMS pensile column and the glass surface. The typical size of the gap is 4∼5 µm. Since the daughter cells are generally smaller than the mother cells, they are removed automatically by the media flow. (d) The experimental setup. Cells are loaded into the microfluidic chip, which is connected to automatic pumps. Continuous images are taken by a time-lapsed microscope at multiple positions each containing one or a few pensile columns.