Development of microfluidic devices incorporating non-spherical hydrogel microparticles for protein-based bioassay

Abstract

This paper describes the fabrication of a microfluidic device for use in protein-based bioassays that effectively incorporates poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) hydrogel microparticles within a defined region. The microfluidic device is composed of a polymerization chamber and reaction chamber that are serially connected through the microchannel. Various shapes and sizes of hydrogel microparticles were fabricated in the polymerization chamber by photopatterning and moved to the reaction chamber by pressure-driven flow. All of the hydrogel microparticles were retained within the reaction chamber due to an in-chamber integrated microfilter with smaller mesh size than hydrogel microparticles. Hydrogel microparticles were able to encapsulate enzymes without losing their activity, and different concentrations of glucose were detected by sequential bienzymatic reaction of hydrogel-entrapped glucose oxidase (GOX) and peroxidase (POD) inside the microfluidic device using fluorescence method. Importantly, there was a linear correspondence between fluorescence intensity and the glucose concentration over the physiologically important range of 1.00-10.00 mM.

Multiplexed suspension array platform for high-throughput protein assays

“…The method chosen was to array the particles on a flat substrate in a similar manner to that demonstrated previously (Michida et al 2010;Choi et al 2008;Jang and Koh 2010;Demierre et al 2010), followed by scanning and imaging the substrate to read the codes. The device was designed to locate the particles in a well defined area, with no overlaps, allowing quick and efficient analysis of as many particles as possible.…”

Rapid prototyping of PMMA microfluidic chips utilizing a CO2 laser

“…Microfluidic chips have attracted significant attention over the past decade due to their wide range of potential applications in the biomedical and chemical analysis fields, including capillary electrophoresis (Fu et al , 2008aOhno et al 2008;Fu et al 2009), flow cytometry (Fu et al 2004(Fu et al , 2008bTsai et al 2008;Wang 2008, 2009;Hou et al 2009;Lin et al 2009), polymerase chain reaction (Prakash and Kaler 2007;Prakash et al 2008;Lund-Olesen et al 2008;Lien et al 2009;Allen et al 2009;Hsieh et al 2009), DNA amplification (Sundberg et al 2007;Lin et al 2008), and protein analysis (Choi et al 2008;Zhang et al 2008a, b;Lee et al 2009;Tran et al 2010). Moreover, many researchers have demonstrated the feasibility of utilizing micromachining techniques to fabricate a network of microchannels on single quartz, glass, or plastic (polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA), polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), PC) substrates so as to create microchips capable of performing multiple procedures, e.g., sample handling, mixing, pretreatment, chemical reaction, separation, and so forth (Lee et al 2006;Lin et al 2007;Tsai et al 2007;Beyor et al 2008;Wu and Li 2008;Fu et al 2008c;Zhu et al 2009;Wen et al 2009;Hairer and Vellekoop 2009;Yeh et al 2010).…”

Microfluidic production of single micrometer-sized hydrogel beads utilizing droplet dissolution in a polar solvent

“…In addition, nonspherical beads have been produced by employing photopolymerization-based techniques, such as a) Tel./Fax: þ81-43-290-3398. E-mail: m-yamada@faculty.chiba-u.jp 1932-1058/2013/7(5)/054120/11/$30.00 V C 2013 AIP Publishing LLC 7, 054120-1 stopped-flow lithography, [16][17][18][19][20] scanning-laser lithography, 21 micro-molding, 22 and continuous cross-linking, 23 or by utilizing multiphase microfluidics. 24 These non-spherical beads would be potentially useful as unit structures for fabricating large hydrogel-based constructs by 3D assembly and would also be advantageous for biological encapsulation due to their higher surface-to-volume ratios compared to the spherical beads.…”