Deterministic cell-bead and cell-cell pairing and encapsulation

The ability to efficiently create compartmentalized pairs of micron-sized objects is of increasing importance in single-cell analysis. Here we present a method for deterministic, passive, and highly-efficient isolation of cell-bead or cell-cell pairs for downstream analysis (i.e., sensing of single-cell secretions or single-cell sequencing). The high efficiencies of cell capture (89%), pairing (85%), and recovery allow for efficient processing of highly-valuable or sparse samples. Importantly, the method minimizes the probability of high-cell-number multiplets and enables the exchange of reagents and on-chip incubation for long-term observation.