Abstract
Filtration for microfluidic sample-collection devices is desirable for sample selection, concentration, preprocessing, and manipulation, but microfabricating the required sub-micrometer structures is an elaborate process. This article presents a simple method to integrate filters in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) devices to sample microorganisms in aqueous environments. An off-the-shelf membrane filter with 0.22-μm pores was embedded in a PDMS layer and sequentially bound with other PDMS channel layers. No leakage was observed during filtration. This device was validated by concentrating a large amount of biomass, from 15 × 107 to 3 × 108 cells/ml of cyanobacterium Synechocystis in simulated sample water with consistent performance across devices. The major advantages of this method are low cost, simple design, straightforward fabrication, and robust performance, enabling wide-utility of chip-based devices for field-deployable operations in environmental microbiology.
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Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge Dr. Weimin Gao for assisting with bacterial cell culture, Dr. Weiwen Zhang for technical consulting, Mr. Vivek Nandakumar for assistance with edits. We also thank the SWETTE Center for Environmental Biotechnology, Arizona State University, for providing the wastewater sample and ASU for the support.
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Lécluse, A., Chao, Sh. & Meldrum, D.R. Embedding off-the-shelf filter in PDMS chip for microbe sampling. Microfluid Nanofluid 11, 221–225 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-011-0792-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-011-0792-7