Department of Engineering Science, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan.
Biomed Microdevices. 2010 Oct;12(5):887-96. doi: 10.1007/s10544-010-9443-0.
This study presents an integrated microfluidic chip for non-immunologically determining the concentrations of albumin in clinical urine samples. This microchip integrates membrane-type micromixers and a fan-shaped micropump capable of simultaneously and precisely delivering assay reagents to react with 6 urine samples in one single operation. The experimental results show that the coefficient of variation in the pumping rate is 2.42%. More importantly, using this unique chip design, only 2 electromagnetic valves are required for the actuation of the micromixer and the micropump. The working range of the proposed microchip is 2-200 mg/L of albumin, which covers the range of interest for the determination of microalbuminuria. Moreover, statistical analysis show that the results obtained by the proposed microchip are in good agreement with the conventional detection method, based on immunological assays. This simple, inexpensive and microchip-based platform presents a promising alternative to conventional immunological assays for measurement of urinary albumin, and is well suited for clinical applications.
本研究提出了一种集成微流控芯片，用于非免疫测定临床尿液样本中的白蛋白浓度。该微芯片集成了膜式微混合器和扇形微泵，能够在单次操作中同时且精确地向 6 个尿液样本中输送检测试剂。实验结果表明，泵送速率的变异系数为 2.42%。更重要的是，使用这种独特的芯片设计，微混合器和微泵的驱动仅需要 2 个电磁阀。所提出的微芯片的工作范围为 2-200mg/L 的白蛋白，涵盖了微量白蛋白尿测定的感兴趣范围。此外，统计分析表明，所提出的微芯片的结果与基于免疫学检测的常规检测方法具有良好的一致性。这种简单、廉价的基于微芯片的平台为传统的免疫测定法提供了一种有前途的替代方法，可用于测量尿液白蛋白，非常适合临床应用。
