Institute of Microelectronics, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States.
Sci Rep. 2019 Mar 25;9(1):5058. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-41519-0.
Synthetic oligonucleotides (oligos) are important tools in the fields of molecular biology and genetic engineering. For applications requiring a large number of oligos with high concentration, it is critical to perform high throughput oligo synthesis and achieve high yield of each oligo. This study reports a microreactor chip for oligo synthesis. By incorporating silica beads in the microreactors, the surface area of the solid substrate for oligo synthesis increases significantly in each microreactor. These beads are fixed in the microreactors to withstand the flushing step in oligo synthesis. Compared to conventional synthesis methods, this design is able to avoid protocols to hold the beads and integrate more microreactors on a chip. An inkjet printer is utilized to deliver chemical reagents in the microreactors. To evaluate the feasibility of oligo synthesis using this proof-of-concept synthesizer, an oligo with six nucleotide units is successfully synthesized.
合成寡核苷酸（oligos）是分子生物学和基因工程领域的重要工具。对于需要大量高浓度寡核苷酸的应用，高通量寡核苷酸合成和每个寡核苷酸的高产量至关重要。本研究报告了一种用于寡核苷酸合成的微反应器芯片。通过在微反应器中加入硅胶珠，每个微反应器中寡核苷酸合成的固体基底表面积显著增加。这些珠子固定在微反应器中，以承受寡核苷酸合成中的冲洗步骤。与传统的合成方法相比，这种设计能够避免固定珠子的方案，并在芯片上集成更多的微反应器。喷墨打印机用于在微反应器中输送化学试剂。为了评估使用这种概念验证合成仪进行寡核苷酸合成的可行性，成功合成了一个具有六个核苷酸单元的寡核苷酸。
