Quantitative estimation of the lipid productivity of single algae cells in alginate hydrogel microbeads

This paper presents the first demonstration of the droplet-based microfluidics to fabricate an alginate hydrogel microbead with a diameter of ~30 μm that encapsulates single microalga from three species of green microalgae (Chlorella vulgaris, Chlamydomonas sp., and Botryococcus braunii) for application to the real-time screening of single cells. We performed the quantitative estimation of the lipid content of individual microalgal cells by non-destructive fluorescence staining using BODIPY. This feature leads to easy combination of a high-throughput screening system which could be applicable to the economically feasible production of microalgae for biofuels.