A Focus on Microfluidics and Nanotechnology Approaches for the Ultra Sensitive Detection of MicroRNA

Abstract

MicroRNAs are small RNAs that are deregulated under disease conditions. This allows them to be used as biomarkers for disease diagnosis. Recently, such microRNAs are serving as non- invasive blood based biomarkers due to ease of detection, and high stability at room temperature in biofluids. In view of these advancements in biomarker research, efficient miRNA detection at the femtomolar level is important. MiRNA detection techniques to date include Northern blotting, real time PCR and microarray technology. While these are efficient techniques, they cannot detect very low miRNA levels, and have questionable specificity. This review describes nanotechnology, microfluidics and liquid phase miRNA detection techniques that are highly sensitive and specific. With some sophistication, some of these techniques can be used as point of care devices to rapidly detect low level miRNA in patient clinical samples to aid disease diagnosis and prognosis.

Sensitive and Multiplexed On‐chip microRNA Profiling in Oil‐Isolated Hydrogel Chambers

“…[1c,2] These include sequence homology, diversity of abundance, and the exacting demands of a clinical assay, which requires multiplexed, sensitive, and specific analysis of small panels of miRNAs from low sample inputs while minimizing assay time, external equipment and number of cumbersome steps. [2b,3] While northern blotting is still widely used for its specificity, the need for large RNA input (5–25 µg), long processing time, and low sensitivity (~nM) render it infeasible for clinical application. [4] Although other commercial platforms provide large-plexes and higher sensitivity, they still fall short on the other metrics.…”

Miniaturized System with a Facile Isothermal Amplification Microfluidic Chip for Rapid Detection of Zika Viruses

“…With the development of microfluidics technology, many efforts have been focused on lab-on-a-chip or micrototal analysis systems. Lab-on-a-chip or micrototal analysis systems have some advantages like high throughput, short analysis time, small volumes and high sensitivities [3,4], which can be capable of ready measurement of disease biomarkers in physiological fluids [5,6].…”

Quantification of Mature MicroRNAs Using Pincer Probes and Real-Time PCR Amplification

“…The method is as specific as stem-loop RT-PCR and the reverse transcription is performed with a universal primer and is therefore optimal for analysis of miRNAs for high-throughput screening. In addition, microfluidics and nanotechnology approaches [21], surface plasmon resonance biosensor [22] and the widely used next-generation sequencing technique [23] have also been proposed. These methods provide innovative and robust solutions for rapid and accurate miRNA quantification.…”