Abstract
Solid-state molecular beacons show great potential for label-free biomarker detection, however, it is challenging to construct robust and homogenous quantum dot molecular beacon microarrays in a microfluidic platform. Here, we report a simple and cost-effective method of constructing a mercaptopropionic acid quantum dot (MPA-QD) microarray in a microfluidic platform using a PDMS through-hole structure. This method combines soft lithography and surface functionalization to achieve uniform QD immobilization in a microfluidic network. With the simple fabricated quantum dot microarray sensor integrated in the microfluidic device, label-free biomarker detection was performed with high efficiency, specificity and sensitivity. We performed cardiovascular biomarker detection, and our microfluidic QD molecular beacon platform achieved target DNA sequence identification at a low concentration of 1 nM/L.
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Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31570861 and 61306145), the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2015AA020409), the Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Committee Grant (KQCX20140521115045445), the Major Program of Guangdong Science and Technology Project (2015B020227002), and the Guangdong Innovative Research Team Program (No. 2011S013) and its Shenzhen Supporting Fund (KYPT20121228160843693), and the Shenzhen Basic Science Fund (JCYJ20160331185602643).
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HL and YC conceived and designed the experiments. HL and WS performed the fabrication and the experiments. HF optimized the fabrication process. BZ and ZL analyzed the measurement data, and YC organized the paper. All authors were involved in the preparation of this manuscript.
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This article is part of the topical collection “2016 International Conference of Microfluidics, Nanofluidics and Lab-on-a-Chip, Dalian, China” guest edited by Chun Yang, Carolyn Ren and Xiangchun Xuan.
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Liu, H., Shu, W., Liu, Z. et al. A simple method of constructing microfluidic solid-state quantum dot molecular beacon array for label-free DNA detection. Microfluid Nanofluid 21, 67 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-017-1906-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-017-1906-7