from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
In recent years, microfluidics has shown considerable promise for improving diagnostics and biology research. Certain properties of microfluidic technologies, such as rapid sample processing and the precise control of fluids in an assay, have made them attractive candidates to replace traditional experimental approaches [1]. Here, an example of such application is presented: ELISA that uses magnetic particles as the solid phase (MELISA) implemented into a microfluidic device. The microfluidic Rhombic chamber chip (120 μl chamber volumes, hydrophilized) in ChipGenie® edition-P holder (microfluidic ChipShop, Jena, D) with strong integrated magnets enabling to fix the magnetic particles in reaction chamber and arrange them as a fluidized bed was employed. The behaviour and colloidal stability of 11 various types of superparamagnetic particles varying in composition and diameter (0.5–100 µm) were compared. Parameters as optimal amount of magnetic particles inside the chamber, rate of aggregation, clogging the chip channels and stability of magnetic cloud inside the chip were evaluated. The microparticles with the best parameters were then coated with specific antigen (chymotrypsin) and traditional MELISA with such bioactive carrier and variously diluted porcine serum was performed in microplate arrangement and simultaneously in microfluidic chip. Only the final step, measurement of sample absorbance was performed off-line in microplate spectrophotometer. Our results repeatedly confirmed that MELISA can be easily adopted for microfluidic version drawing all benefits associated with the miniaturization.
Keywords: ELISA, Microfluidics, Magnetic Particles, Lab-on-Chip© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.