State Key Laboratory of ASIC and System, School of Microelectronics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
Shanghai Turtle Technology Company Limited, Shanghai 200439, China.
Biosensors (Basel). 2021 May 18;11(5):158. doi: 10.3390/bios11050158.
A polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based self-priming microfluidic chip with cushion chambers is presented in this study for robust and easy-operation digital polymerase chain reaction (dPCR). The chip has only one inlet and can partition samples autonomously through negative pressure, provided by a de-gassed PDMS layer with a multi-level vertical branching microchannel design. Meanwhile, cushion chambers make the chip capable of very robust use for sample partitioning. Finally, the proposed microfluidic chip showed excellent performance in the absolute quantification of a target gene by performing quantitative detection of a 10-fold serial dilution DNA template. Owing to its characteristics of easy operation, low cost, and high robustness, the proposed dPCR chip is expected to further promote the extensive application of digital PCR, especially in resource-limited settings.
本研究提出了一种基于聚二甲基硅氧烷（PDMS）的自吸微流控芯片，带有缓冲室，用于稳健且易于操作的数字聚合酶链式反应（dPCR）。该芯片只有一个入口，通过具有多级垂直分支微通道设计的脱气 PDMS 层产生的负压，可自主分离样品。同时，缓冲室使芯片能够非常稳健地用于样品分离。最后，通过对 10 倍系列稀释 DNA 模板进行定量检测，该微流控芯片在目标基因的绝对定量方面表现出优异的性能。由于其操作简单、成本低、稳健性高的特点，预计该 dPCR 芯片将进一步推动数字 PCR 的广泛应用，特别是在资源有限的环境中。
