Application of Droplet Microfluidic Technology Combined with Nucleic Acid Amplification in the Detection of Foodborne Pathogens

Foodborne pathogen is an important factor affecting food safety. With the biotechnology development and the improved requirements for food safety, the detection methods of foodborne pathogens are constantly updated and improved. By microfluidic technology, the processes of sample pretreatment, separation and detection are integrated on a tiny chip, and a variety of functions are completed. As an important branch, droplet microfluidic technology can be used for high-throughput detection with the dispersed microdroplets formed by two insoluble liquids. In this paper, according to the different ways of nucleic acid amplification, the characteristics of droplet microfluidic-digital polymerase chain reaction, droplet microfluidic-digital loop-mediated isothermal amplification, and droplet microfluidic-digital recombinase polymerase amplification are compared and summarized. The applications of these methods in the detections of foodborne pathogens are also presented. In addition, the future developments of these technologies are prospected. The intelligent, continuous, precise and miniaturized rapid detections of foodborne pathogens are realized by droplet microfluidic technology combined with digital nucleic acid amplification. This paper would provide references for the development of the technology in the field of rapid detection of foodborne pathogens.