Formation of uniform reaction volumes using concentric amphiphilic microparticles

Reactions performed in uniform microscale volumes have enabled numerous applications in the analysis of rare entities (e.g. cells and molecules), however, sophisticated instruments are usually required to form large numbers of uniform compartments. Here, uniform aqueous droplets are formed by simply mixing microscale multi-material particles, consisting of concentric hydrophobic outer and hydrophilic inner layers, with oil and water. The particles are manufactured in batch using a 3D printed device to co-flow four concentric streams of polymer precursors which are polymerized with UV light. The size of the particles is readily controlled by adjusting the fluid flow rate ratios and mask design; whereas the cross-sectional shapes are altered by microfluidic nozzle design in the 3D printed device. Once a particle encapsulates an aqueous volume, each “dropicle” provides uniform compartmentalization and customizable shape-coding for each sample volume to enable multiplexing of uniform reactions in a scalable manner. We implement an enzymatically-amplified affinity assay using the dropicle system, yielding a detection limit of <1 pM with a dynamic range of at least 3 orders of magnitude. Moreover, multiplexing using two types of shape-coded particles was demonstrated without cross talk, laying a foundation for democratized single-entity assays.