School of Mechanical Engineering, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, 215009, China.
Department of Pathology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Soochow, Suzhou, 215000, China.
Lab Chip. 2024 Sep 10;24(18):4379-4389. doi: 10.1039/d4lc00393d.
The first step in blood testing necessitates blood separation to obtain an adequate volume of plasma. Traditional centrifugation is bulky, expensive and electricity-powered, which is not suitable for micro-scale blood plasma separation in point-of-care testing (POCT) cases. Microfluidic paper-based plasma separation devices present a promising alternative for plasma separation in such occasions. However, they are limited in terms of plasma yield, which hinders analyte detection. Herein, we proposed a humidity-enhanced paper-based microfluidic plasma separation method to address this issue. Specifically, paper was first treated by blood-typing antibodies, then samples of whole blood were introduced into the prepared paper. After waiting for 5 min for RBC agglutination and plasma wicking under high humidity, micro-scale plasma separation from whole blood was achieved. As a result, an extremely high plasma yield of up to 60.1% could be separated from whole blood through using Xuan-paper. Meanwhile, the purity of plasma could reach 99.99%. Finally, this innovative approach was effortlessly integrated into distance-based glucose concentration detection, enabling rapid determination of blood glucose levels through naked-eye observation. Considering the simplicity and inexpensiveness of this method, we believe that this technology could be integrated to more paper-based microfluidic analytical devices for rapid and accurate detection of plasma analytes in POCT.
在血液检测中，第一步需要将血液分离以获得足够量的血浆。传统的离心法体积大、成本高且需要电力，因此不适合即时检测（POCT）中微尺度血浆分离的情况。基于微流控的纸基血浆分离设备为这种情况下的血浆分离提供了一种有前途的替代方法。然而，它们在血浆产量方面存在限制，这阻碍了分析物的检测。在此，我们提出了一种增强湿度的基于纸的微流控血浆分离方法来解决这个问题。具体来说，首先用血型抗体处理纸张，然后将全血样本引入制备好的纸张中。在高湿度下等待 5 分钟，让红细胞聚集和血浆虹吸后，即可实现从全血中进行微尺度的血浆分离。结果，通过使用宣纸，可从全血中分离出高达 60.1%的超高血浆产量。同时，血浆的纯度可达 99.99%。最后，这种创新方法轻松集成到基于距离的葡萄糖浓度检测中，通过肉眼观察即可快速测定血糖水平。考虑到这种方法的简单性和经济性，我们相信这项技术可以集成到更多的基于纸的微流控分析设备中，用于 POCT 中血浆分析物的快速准确检测。
