IMPROVEMENT OF DNA MICROARRAY BIOCHIPSUSING MICROFLUIDIC MIXING TECHNIQUE

摘要

Conventional DNA microarray hybridization relies on thediffusion of targets to surface-bound probes, and thus is a ratelimitedprocess. In this paper, a micromixing technique based oncavitation microstreaming principle was developed to acceleratehybridization process. Fluidic experiments showed that the time tofully mix a 20 μL chamber using microstreaming was significantlyreduced from hours (a pure diffusion-based mixing) to tens ofseconds. Cavitation microstreaming was implemented to enhanceDNA hybridization in both fluorescent detection based and electrochemicaldetection based microarray chips. Hybridization resultsshowed that microstreaming results in up to 5 folds signalenhancement and kinetics acceleration, and signal uniformity isalso significantly improved, compared to conventional diffusionbasedbiochips. Acoustic microstreaming has many advantagesover most existing mixing techniques for hybridizationenhancement, including simple apparatus, ease of implementation,low power consumption (2 mW), and low cost.