CE chips fabricated by injection molding and polyethylene/thermoplastic elastomer film packaging methods.
This study presents a new packaging method using a polyethylene/thermoplastic elastomer (PE/TPE) film to seal an injection-molded CE chip made of either poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) or polycarbonate (PC) materials. The packaging is performed at atmospheric pressure and at room temperature, which is a fast, easy, and reliable bonding method to form a sealed CE chip for chemical analysis and biomedical applications. The fabrication of PMMA and PC microfluidic channels is accomplished by using an injection-molding process, which could be mass-produced for commercial applications. In addition to microfluidic CE channels, 3-D reservoirs for storing biosamples, and CE buffers are also formed during this injection-molding process. With this approach, a commercial CE chip can be of low cost and disposable. Finally, the functionality of the mass-produced CE chip is demonstrated through its successful separation of phiX174 DNA/HaeIII markers. Experimental data show that the S/N for the CE chips using the PE/TPE film has a value of 5.34, when utilizing DNA markers with a concentration of 2 ng/microL and a CE buffer of 2% hydroxypropyl-methylcellulose (HPMC) in Tris-borate-EDTA (TBE) with 1% YO-PRO-1 fluorescent dye. Thus, the detection limit of the developed chips is improved. Lastly, the developed CE chips are used for the separation and detection of PCR products. A mixture of an amplified antibiotic gene for Streptococcus pneumoniae and phiX174 DNA/HaeIII markers was successfully separated and detected by using the proposed CE chips. Experimental data show that these DNA samples were separated within 2 min. The study proposed a promising method for the development of mass-produced CE chips.
Huang
Fu-Chun
FC
Department of Engineering Science, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
Chen
Yih-Far
YF
Lee
Gwo-Bin
GB
D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000032:analysis; D001435:Bacteriophages / Q000737:chemistry; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D020724:Elastomers / Q000737:chemistry*; D046209:Electrophoresis, Microchip / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D044085:Microfluidics; D046915:Penicillin-Binding Proteins / Q000032:analysis; D011095:Polyethylenes / Q000737:chemistry*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013296:Streptococcus pneumoniae / Q000737:chemistry
D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D004279:DNA, Viral; D020724:Elastomers; D046915:Penicillin-Binding Proteins; D011095:Polyethylenes