Design of a microfluidic strategy for trapping and screening single cells
Highlights•A microfluidic platform was designed for single cells trapping.•Trapping mechanism is based on the automatic variation of hydraulic resistance.•Presenting platform allowed a single cell trapping efficiency of around 40%.•A chaotic mixing element was integrated to deliver patterns of particles to cells.;AbstractTraditionally, in vitro investigations on biology and physiology of cells rely on averaging the responses eliciting from heterogeneous cell populations, thus being unsuitable for assessing individual cell behaviors in response to external stimulations.