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Microfluidic- and Microelectromechanical System (MEMS)-Based Platforms for Experimental Analysis of Pollen Tube Growth Behavior and Quantification of Cell Mechanical Properties

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Book cover Pollen Tip Growth

Abstract

Experimentation on pollen tubes has benefited greatly from recent technological developments in the fields of microfluidics and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Various design strategies have been developed to expose in vitro growing pollen tubes to a range of experimental assays with the aim to study their behavior and their mechanical properties. The devices allow exposing the cells to chemical gradients, microstructural features, integrated biosensors, or directional triggers, and they are compatible with Nomarski optics and fluorescence microscopy. Microfluidic technology has opened new avenues for both more efficient experimentation and large-scale phenotyping of tip-growing cells under precisely controlled, reproducible conditions. The chapter provides an overview of the different design strategies used and the type of data acquired over the past 5 years since the technique was first adopted by the pollen community.

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Abbreviations

LoC:

Lab-on-a-chip

MEMS:

Microelectromechanical systems

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Department of Plant Science, McGill University, Macdonald Campus, 21111 Lakeshore, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec, H9X 3V9, Canada

    Anja Geitmann

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  1. Anja Geitmann
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Correspondence to Anja Geitmann .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Biology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

    Gerhard Obermeyer

  2. Cell Biology Molecular Genetics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA

    José Feijó

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Geitmann, A. (2017). Microfluidic- and Microelectromechanical System (MEMS)-Based Platforms for Experimental Analysis of Pollen Tube Growth Behavior and Quantification of Cell Mechanical Properties. In: Obermeyer, G., Feijó, J. (eds) Pollen Tip Growth. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56645-0_5

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