title: A novel picoliter droplet array for parallel real-time polymerase chain reaction based on double-inkjet printing.
abstract: We developed and characterized a novel picoliter droplet-in-oil array generated by a double-inkjet printing method on a uniform hydrophobic silicon chip specifically designed for quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) analysis. Double-inkjet printing was proposed to efficiently address the evaporation issues of picoliter droplets during array generation on a planar substrate without the assistance of a humidifier or glycerol. The method utilizes piezoelectric inkjet printing equipment to precisely eject a reagent droplet into an oil droplet, which had first been dispensed on a hydrophobic and oleophobic substrate. No evaporation, random movement, or cross-contamination was observed during array fabrication and thermal cycling. We demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of this novel double-inkjet method for real-time PCR analysis. This method can readily produce multivolume droplet-in-oil arrays with volume variations ranging from picoliters to nanoliters. This feature would be useful for simultaneous multivolume PCR experiments aimed at wide and tunable dynamic ranges. These double-inkjet-based picoliter droplet arrays may have potential for multiplexed applications that require isolated containers for single-cell cultures, single molecular enzymatic assays, or digital PCR and provide an alternative option for generating droplet arrays on planar substrates without chemical patterning.
authors: State Key Laboratory on Integrated Optoelectronics, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 912, Beijing, 100083, China. yudeyu@semi.ac.cn.
authors: Yingnan
authors: Y
authors: Sun
authors: Xiaoguang
authors: X
authors: Zhou
authors: Yude
authors: Y
authors: Yu
mesh_terms: D046228:Microarray Analysis / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods