Pre-storage of gelified reagents in a lab-on-a-foil system for rapid nucleic acid analysis

• Published in: Lab on a chip Vol. 13; no. 8; pp. 159 - 1514
• Main Authors: Sun, Yi, Høgberg, Jonas, Christine, Thanner, Florian, Laouenan, Monsalve, Lisandro G, Rodriguez, Sonia, Cao, Cuong, Wolff, Anders, Ruano-Lopez, Jesus M, Bang, Dang Duong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England 01.01.2013
• Subjects: Automation; Campylobacter jejuni - genetics; Cost analysis; Cost engineering; Devices; DNA, Bacterial - analysis; Lab-On-A-Chip Devices; Mass production; Microfluidic Analytical Techniques - instrumentation; Microfluidic Analytical Techniques - methods; Microfluidics; Polymerase Chain Reaction; Risk; Stores
• ISSN: 1473-0197; 1473-0189
• DOI: 10.1039/c2lc41386h

Reagent pre-storage in a microfluidic chip can enhance operator convenience, simplify the system design, reduce the cost of storage and shipment, and avoid the risk of cross-contamination. Although dry reagents have long been used in lateral flow immunoassays, they have rarely been used for nucleic acid-based point-of-care (POC) assays due to the lack of reliable techniques to dehydrate and store fragile molecules involved in the reaction. In this study, we describe a simple and efficient method for prolonged on-chip storage of PCR reagents. The method is based on gelification of all reagents required for PCR as a ready-to-use product. The approach was successfully implemented in a lab-on-a-foil system, and the gelification process was automated for mass production. Integration of reagents on-chip by gelification greatly facilitated the development of easy-to-use lab-on-a-chip (LOC) devices for fast and cost-effective POC analysis. We describe here a simple and efficient method for prolonged on chip storage of PCR reagents based on gelification. The approach was successfully implemented in a lab-on-a-chip system, and the gelification process was automated for mass production.