Micro-Nano Innovations (MiNI) Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Davis, California 95616, United States.
Institute of Biomedical and Health Engineering, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.
Anal Chem. 2021 Aug 24;93(33):11424-11432. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.1c01231. Epub 2021 Aug 11.
Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), as one of the most used immunoassays, have been conducted ubiquitously in hospitals, research laboratories, etc. However, the conventional ELISA procedure is usually laborious, occupies bulky instruments, consumes lengthy operation time, and relies considerably on the skills of technicians, and such limitations call for innovations to develop a fully automated ELISA platform. In this paper, we have presented a system incorporating a robotic-microfluidic interface (RoMI) and a modular hybrid microfluidic chip that embeds a highly sensitive nanofibrous membrane, referred to as the Robotic ELISA, to achieve human-free sample-to-answer ELISA tests in a fully programmable and automated manner. It carries out multiple bioanalytical procedures to replace the manual steps involved in classic ELISA operations, including the pneumatically driven high-precision pipetting, efficient mixing and enrichment enabled by back-and-forth flows, washing, and integrated machine vision for colorimetric readout. The Robotic ELISA platform has achieved a low limit of detection of 0.1 ng/mL in the detection of a low sample volume (15 μL) of chloramphenicol within 20 min without human intervention, which is significantly faster than that of the conventional ELISA procedure. Benefiting from its modular design and automated operations, the Robotic ELISA platform has great potential to be deployed for a broad range of detections in various resource-limited settings or high-risk environments, where human involvement needs to be minimized while the testing timeliness, consistency, and sensitivity are all desired.
酶联免疫吸附测定（ELISA）作为最常用的免疫测定方法之一，已经在医院、研究实验室等广泛应用。然而，传统的 ELISA 程序通常繁琐，需要占用大型仪器，操作时间长，并且对技术人员的技能要求较高，这些局限性要求开发出一种完全自动化的 ELISA 平台。在本文中，我们提出了一种系统，该系统结合了机器人微流控接口（RoMI）和模块化混合微流控芯片，该芯片嵌入了高度灵敏的纳米纤维膜，称为机器人 ELISA，以实现全自动和可编程的无人参与的样品到答案 ELISA 测试。它执行多个生物分析程序，以取代经典 ELISA 操作中涉及的手动步骤，包括气动驱动的高精度移液、通过往复流实现的高效混合和浓缩、洗涤以及用于比色读出的集成机器视觉。机器人 ELISA 平台在无人干预的情况下，在 20 分钟内以 15 μL 的低样品量检测到 0.1 ng/mL 的低检测限，明显快于传统 ELISA 程序。得益于其模块化设计和自动化操作，机器人 ELISA 平台具有广泛应用于各种资源有限或高风险环境中的各种检测的潜力，在这些环境中，需要最大限度地减少人员参与，同时还需要满足测试的及时性、一致性和灵敏度。
