Microfluidic Chip for Detection

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Microfluidic chips have been widely implemented in a variety of biological applications, including single-cell analyses, molecular diagnostics, DNA sequencing, PCR amplification, amino acid/peptide/protein analysis, immunoassays, cell sorting, and manipulation, andso on. They resent essential advantages in high throughput biomolecules’ detection.

Advantages of Detection by Microfluidic Chips

Microfluidic chips allow the manipulation and analysis of fluids within micrometer-sized channels, which shows great benefits including the reduction of the sample size, fast analysis and short reaction times, parallel operation for multiple analyses, and the possibility of portable devices. For the detection of trace amounts of organisms or molecules, microfluidics has attracted more and more attention and experienced rapid growth because of low sample and reagent usage.

Microfluidic Chip for Tumor Marker Detection

Microfluidic chips have become an ideal platform for the detection of tumor markers. Because of the micro-scale effect, simple operation, easy to realize automation and integration, convenience for high-throughput analysis, a variety of microfluidic chips has been developed to detect tumor markers. Sun et al. designed a microfluidic chip-based on capillary infiltration to detect tumor markers. Serum samples can flow along a microchannel that utilized capillary force to realize sample injection, biochemical reactions and waste liquid collection, and rapid qualitative detection of tumor markers and other biological molecules. The detection principle of this microfluidic chip is antigen-antibody immune reaction, which was highly selective and sensitive. Besides, a number of microfluidic functions including blood plasma separation, microvalve operation, and antibody immobilization are integrated into this chip to achieve separation of trace whole blood, control of sample flow rate accurately, and detection of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP).

Fig. 1 Real-time detection and capture of tumor cells.¹

Microfluidic Chip for Viruses Detection

Microfluidic chips have a high potential to be a cost-efficient and disposable tool for rapid diagnosis of viral infection. They have been reported to manipulate and detect various infectious agents such as the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), influenza viruses and the Zika virus. A microfluidic-based method was designed for detecting H1N1 influenza, and the results suggested that the limit of detection (LOD) of molecular diagnostics for the virus can be lowered by systematically combining immunomagnetic separation and RT-PCR in one microfluidic device. Besides, digital microfluidic RT-PCR has been performed in a study to detect Hepatitis A and noroviruses in the gut. A wide range of traditional methods, including RT-PCR, RT-LAMP (reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification), Nested PCR, Nucleic acid hybridization, ELISA, and Fluorescence-Based Assays can be integrated into a microfluidic device to achieve more effective viral detection.

Fig. 2 Real-time detection and capture of tumor cells.¹

Microfluidic Chip for Detection of Fungal Infections

Conventional detection methods of fungal infections are time-consuming and require expensive equipment, while, the microfluidic chip will be useful to screen for various pathogens at the point-of-care and clinical settings. Scientists developed an innovative immuno-based microfluidic device that can rapidly detect and capture Candida albicans from phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and human whole blood. This microfluidic chip showed an efficient capture of C. albicans in PBS with an efficiency of 61-78% at various concentrations ranging from 10 to 10⁵ colony-forming units per milliliter (CFU/mL).

Microfluidic chips have revolutionized the traditional detection methods because of their miniaturization, integration, and automation. As a leader in microfluidic chip development, Creative Biolabs is dedicated to establishing the most exquisite microfluidic platform and providing one-stop microfluidic solutions for nucleic acid, protein, small molecule, cell, immunoassays, etc. If you are interested in our services, please do not hesitate to contact us for more detailed information.

Reference

Lux, Bott, et al. " Real-Time Detection of Tumor Cells during Capture on a Filter Element Significantly Enhancing Detection Rate." Biosensors 11.9 (2021): 312.

For Research Use Only. Not For Clinical Use.