Ma Bo and Xu Jian invented Raman's activation of single-cell droplet sorting technology.

Individual cells are the basic unit of cell life function and evolution on Earth.
the high-throughput function sorting of single-cell accuracy is an important tool to analyze the heterogeneity mechanism of life system and explore the microbial dark matter in nature.
single-cell Raman spectroscopy (SCRS) reveals the inherent chemical composition of cells without marking, loss-making, Raman Activation Cell Sorting (RACS) is receiving increasing attention.
, but the sorting flux is the bottleneck that limits its wide application.
a multidisciplinary cross-cutting team led by Ma Bo and Xu Jian, researchers at the Single Cell Center of qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Process of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, invented Raman activated single-cell droplet sorting technology (Raman activated single-cell droplet Sorting) by coupling SCRS and droplet microfluidic sleath control technology. RADS), which is the highest sorting flux of any work that has been publicly reported.
research was published online in the journal Analytical Chemistry.
researchers invented the flow RACS technology based on microflow control chip, and achieved single cell capture, Raman acquisition, release and sorting in high-speed flow state by integrating dielectric-based single cell capture release and solenoid sucking technology, with a flux of up to 60 cells/minute.
to further improve flux, the researchers suggest that a single cell is packaged by droplets and that ultra-high flux sorting can be achieved by coupling dielectric.
droplet wrap not only protects cells from damage during sorting, but also seamlessly connects with the extraction and analysis of culture, DNA, RNA, protein, etc. of the sorting cells.
, RADS technology has a broad application prospect.
however, there are many technical difficulties in RADS technology.
first, the convex/concave shape of the droplet surface will have a lens effect that affects Raman laser focus ingeand and reduces spatial resolution, resulting in no ramen signal from the cells in the droplet.
, single-cell droplet wrap requires the introduction of an oil phase, which has a strong Raman background and can seriously affect the precise acquisition of cell Raman signals.
third, there is no precedent for the automatic integration of Raman collection, analysis, single-cell droplet wrap and sorting.
researchers cleverly use the strategy of obtaining single-cell Raman signal first and then wrapping single-cell droplets, effectively solving the effect of droplets on Raman signal acquisition;
the system achieves the precision of high-yielding astaxanthin rain red ball algae (with a sorting accuracy of up to 98.3%), and high throughput (260 cells per minute) screening.
studies showed that 92.7% of the rain-based red algae cells remained active and proliferated after the sorting, and there was no significant difference compared to the unselected control group, indicating that RADS technology adequately protected cell activity.
pre-study has shown that Ramanome, based on single-cell Raman imaging, can identify and analyze nearly limitless cellular functions without labeling and non-destructiveness.
RADS coupled with Raman group technology will allow high-throughput sorting of a wide range of cell functions, allowing for culture or histological analysis of specific functional single cells downstream.
this work provides the foundation for the development of a highly quantitative and integrated single-cell Raman sorting and sequencing system.
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