A self-priming digital microfluidic chip for single-cell antibiotic susceptibility testing

The escalating threat of bacterial antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a critical challenge to global health, and in response, antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) emerges as a vital tool for combating this issue. This study introduces an innovative self-priming digital microfluidic chip designed for rapid AST at the single-cell level, featuring an array of 1,824 chambers with integrated microvalves that facilitate effortless self-priming sample loading, eliminating the need for cumbersome external pumps. This platform has a merit of customizable pre-coating capability, allowing users to apply various antibiotics at different concentrations for multiple on-chip ASTs and streamlining the determination of minimal inhibitory concentrations (MIC) in a straightforward manner. Our experiments with Klebsiella pneumoniae ( K. pneumoniae ) demonstrated that the chip not only accurately assessed antibiotic susceptibility but also achieved results in just six hours, significantly shorter than traditional broth dilution methods. This self-priming microfluidic chip represents a leap forward in rapid AST, showcasing enhanced customization and efficiency for point-of-care testing (POCT) applications, and its potential to tackle multi-drug resistant bacterial strains makes it a promising solution for modern clinical diagnostics.