Analysis of cellular biomolecules and behaviors using microfluidic chip and fluorescence method

Cells, as the fundamental structural elements and functional units of life, are necessary to be explored the variation of components and behaviors in the physiological and pathological processes. Benefited from the development of microfluidic culture and fluorescence labeling techniques, chips coupled with fluorescent tools have become a powerful platform for cell analysis. Thus, in this review, we mainly focus on the two aspects of overview: one is the microenvironment simulation on microfluidic systems including the fabrication of the chemical and physical microenvironment, the cell-cell co-culture/cell-extracellular matrix interaction model, and organ/tissue-on-a-chip system; the other is the fluorescence labeling strategies for cellular component detection and behavior observation, introducing from several aspects: nucleic acid-based modification, in situ chemical modification, hydrophobic insertion labeling and genetic-based labeling. At last, the existing achievements and future challenges in fluorescent analysis of cells based on microfluidic chip are discussed.