Abstract
The clonal culture of single cells is widely used for studying cell dynamics and heterogeneity in vitro and producing monoclonal cell populations. Using traditional culture systems such as well plates to perform single cell culture experiments is of low efficiency because the Poisson distribution limits the available highest single cell event probability. Here we describe high-efficiency single cell isolation and long-term culture technique, which is based on using a microfluidic chip with a dual-well microchannel design. The utility of this technique is demonstrated with the isolation and culture of cancer and stem cells.