title: Electrophoretic microfluidic devices for mutation detection in clinical diagnostics.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In an era of growing interest in personalized medicine - where ubiquitous patient genotyping holds unprecedented clinical utility - rapid, sensitive and low-cost methodologies will be required for the detection of genetic variants correlative with disease. Electrophoretic microfluidic devices have emerged as a promising platform for such analyses, inherently offering faster analysis, excellent reagent economy, a small laboratory footprint and potentially seamless integration of multiple analytical steps.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Although glass and polymeric microchips have recently been developed for a wide variety of medical applications, this review focuses on their application to the detection of clinically relevant genomic DNA mutations and polymorphisms.
  
  
  METHODS
  Mutation analysis techniques, including direct gene sizing, enzyme-based assays, heteroduplex analysis, single-strand conformational polymorphism analysis, and multiplex, allele-specific and methylation-specific PCR are included.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Further development of 'lab-on-a-chip' or 'micro total analysis system' technologies ultimately aims to streamline and miniaturize the entire genetic analysis process, enabling rapid, point-of-care analysis for molecular diagnostics.
authors.affiliation: University of Virginia, Department of Chemistry, McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA +1 434 243 8658 ; +1 434 924 3048 ; landers@virginia.edu.
authors.forename: Alison H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Dewald
authors.forename: Brian L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Poe
authors.forename: James P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Landers