Plant pathogen spores grow in microfluidic droplets: A high-throughput approach to antifungal drug screening

A droplet-based microfluidic approach was investigated to develop high throughput phenotypic screening assays for chemicals, toxic to oomycete plant pathogens. Random fast moving Phytophthora sojae zoospores and an antioomycete drug were encapsulated in micro-sized droplets. Phenotypic responses of zoospores to the drug at different concentrations were quantified parallely inside the droplets with a single zoospore spatial resolution and large data sets. This droplet-based device can not only provide a high throughput phenotypic drug screening technique for plant pathogenic zoospores, but also advance our understanding of interactions of plant pathogens with chemical compounds.