A highly efficient and versatile microchip capillary electrophoresis method for DNA separation using gold nanoparticle as a tag

A microfluidic multiplex proteomic immunoassay device for translational research

Objective

Microfluidic technology has the potential to miniaturize and automate complex laboratory procedures. The objective of this study was to assess a microfluidic immunoassay device, Simple Plex, which simultaneously measured IL-1β, TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-10 in serum samples. This assessment is important to understanding the potentials of this microfluidic device as a valuable tool in translational research efforts.

Methods

We studied the operational characteristics of Simple Plex, and compared to other immunoassay systems including bead-based (i.e., Bio-Plex^® from Bio-Rad) and planar micro-spot based (i.e., Multi-Array from Meso Scale Discovery) multiplex assays. We determined imprecisions for each of the Simple Plex assays and evaluated the ability of Simple Plex to detect IL-1β, TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-10 in serum samples.

Results

Simple Plex assays required 25 µL serum, and 1.5 h to run 16 samples per cartridge per instrument. Assay imprecisions, evaluated by measurement of 6 replicates in duplicate from a serum pool using three different cartridges, were less than 10 % for all 4 cytokine protein biomarkers, comparable to the imprecisions of traditional ELISAs. The Simple Plex assays were able to detect 32, 95, 97, and 100 % [i.e., percentages of the results within the respective analytical measurement ranges (AMRs)] of IL-1β, TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-10, respectively, in 66 serum samples.

Conclusions

Simple Plex is a microfluidic multiplex immunoassay device that offers miniaturized, and automated analysis of protein biomarkers. Microfluidic devices such as Simple Plex represent a promising platform to be used in translational research to measure protein biomarkers in real clinical samples.

Comparison of detection techniques for capillary electrophoresis analysis of gold nanoparticles

As metallic nanoparticles are growing in importance as analytes in CE, increases an interest in appropriate detection methods for their quantification in various samples. For gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), the most common UV detection poses intricacy of inadequate sensitivity that hinders the applicability of CE. With the objective of resolving this challenge, UV detection was compared with C(4) D and ICP-MS as alternative modes of detection for AuNPs. A C(4) D detector, applied under pressure-driven conditions, exhibited better sensitivity than a UV detector. However, C(4) D turned to be unsatisfactory to differentiate the signal of AuNPs at common CE conditions despite varying the nature of BGE and detection conditions. Due to intrinsic sensitivity and low background levels typical to Au, ICP-MS greatly surpasses UV detection. After optimization trials, CE-ICP-MS gained the LOD of AuNPs as low as 2 × 10(-15) M, as well as an excellent performance in terms of signal stability and linearity. Also importantly, the optimized BGE appears to be well matched to explore the behavior of AuNPs in biologically relevant systems. This was demonstrated by probing the interaction between AuNPs and the main blood-transporting protein, HSA.

Gold nanomaterials based pseudostationary phases in capillary electrophoresis: a brand-new attempt at chondroitin sulfate isomers separation

In this work, a CE method with bare gold nanorods (GNRs) based pseudostationary phase was developed and applied for the separation of chondroitin sulfate (CS) isomers, CS, and dermatan sulfate (DS). The separation efficiency was investigated by varying the experimental parameters such as concentration and pH of the BGE, separation voltage, internal diameter of capillary, different size, and morphology of gold nanomaterials. Results showed that different size and morphology of gold nanomaterials had different effects on the separation of CS and DS. The best separation of CS and DS was achieved in the BGE composed of aqueous 150 mmol/L (mM) ethylenediamine + 20 mM sodium dihydrogen phosphate + 30% v/v GNRs, pH 4.5, at the separation voltage of -10 kV. Capillary was 59.2 cm in length (effective length 49 cm), 50 μm id capillary thermostated at 25°C. CE with bare GNRs used as pseudostationary phase was shown to be a suitable technique for the separation of CS and DS mixtures with wider peaks. RSD of migration time and peak area of CS and DS were 0.13, 0.14 and 0.86, 1.07%, respectively.

Theory of end-labeled free-solution electrophoresis: is the end effect important?

In the theory of free-solution electrophoresis of a polyelectrolyte (such as the DNA) conjugated with a "drag-tag," the conjugate is divided into segments of equal hydrodynamic friction and its electrophoretic mobility is calculated as a weighted average of the mobilities of individual segments. If all the weights are assumed equal, then for an electrically neutral drag-tag, the elution time t is predicted to depend linearly on the inverse DNA length 1/M. While it is well-known that the equal-weights assumption is approximate and in reality the weights increase toward the ends, this "end effect" has been assumed to be small, since in experiments the t(1/M) dependence seems to be nearly perfectly linear. We challenge this assumption pointing out that some experimental linear fits do not extrapolate to the free (i.e. untagged) DNA elution time in the limit 1/M→0, indicating nonlinearity outside the fitting range. We show that a theory for a flexible polymer taking the end effect into account produces a nonlinear curve that, however, can be fitted with a straight line over a limited range of 1/M typical of experiments, but with a "wrong" intercept, which explains the experimental results without additional assumptions. We also study the influence of the flexibilities of the charged and neutral parts.

Gold-nanoparticle-modified polyvinylidene fluoride membranes used for western blotting with high sensitivity

In this study, we report an ultrasensitive western blotting method by introducing gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) onto modified polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes via atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP).