Protein binding reaction enhanced by bi-directional flow driven by on-chip thermopneumatic actuator.
A microfluidic immunoassay system was developed for the study of the enhancement of protein binding reaction. The system mainly consisted of a thermopneumatic actuator and a reaction chamber. Reagent was pre-installed in the on-chip reservoir and manipulated by the actuator. Such design could eliminate the external tubing connections in order to reduce the waste of reagent and improve the portability. The on-chip actuator could manipulate the reagent bi-directionally to induce vortexes in the chamber. Enhancement of protein binding reaction was demonstrated by the protein model pair, i.e., mouse IgG and anti-mouse IgG. By such bi-directional fluid motion, more binding opportunities between suspended protein and its surface-immobilized counterpart were generated to improve the performance of immunoassay. It showed that an 83.74 % enhancement of the binding reaction was achieved, compared with the static situation. As a whole, the proposed microfluidic system is highly integrated and can enhance the protein binding efficiency using such novel design. The developed system can be easily extended to multi-reagents immunoassay protocols and provides a useful platform for point-of-care applications.
Graduate Institute of Medical Mechatronics, Chang Gung University, 259 Wen-Hwa 1st Road, Kwei-Shan, Tao-Yuan, 333, Taiwan, Republic of China, kflei@mail.cgu.edu.tw.
Kin Fong
KF
Lei
Kuan-Hao
KH
Chen
Yu-Chen
YC
Chang
D000818:Animals; D007118:Immunoassay / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D007074:Immunoglobulin G / Q000737:chemistry*; D051379:Mice; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D011485:Protein Binding
D007074:Immunoglobulin G