droplet-Tn-Seq combines microfluidics with Tn-Seq identifying complex single-cell phenotypes

While Tn-Seq is a powerful tool to determine genome-wide bacterial fitness in high-throughput, culturing transposon-mutant libraries in pools can mask community or other complex single-cell phenotypes. droplet-Tn-seq solves that problem by microfluidics facilitated encapsulation of individual transposon mutants into liquid-in-oil droplets, thereby enabling isolated growth, free from the influence of the population. Importantly, all advantages of Tn-Seq are conserved, while reducing costs and greatly extending its applicability.