Electrode Materials in Microfluidic Systems for the Processing and Separation of DNA: A Mini Review

Abstract

Since the advent of genetic analysis, electrode materials have played an irreplaceable role due to the easily-exploitable negatively-charged backbone of the DNA structure. Initially, the employment of electrophoretic movement lay only in the separation of DNA fragments of differing length; however, the widening utility of electrokinetic phenomena at the microscale in areas such as fluid transportation and multistep integration led researchers to capitalize further when translating processes to microfluidic or “lab-on-chip” devices. Over the following three decades, the field witnessed a plethora of ways in which the necessary voltages could be transmitted to the sample and reagents with many successes; however, additional demands were then placed on those hoping to bring their microdevices to the market place. A greater emphasis on the cost of all constituent parts along with the increased importance that fluidics be contained hermetically at all times meant groups would become more imaginative when incorporating electrode materials. This review will aim to exactly describe the evolution of how those materials have been employed in DNA-based microfluidic devices. It will focus on how developers began to explore other emerging uses and also discuss how their tactics reflected the progressive demands of their chosen industry.

Microfluidic Surgery in Single Cells and Multicellular Systems

“…The fabrication and integration of electrodes consisting of different materials in a microfluidic system has been demonstrated successfully for a range of applications. [98][99][100] Electroporation requires a high electric field for plasma membrane permeabilization. Such high electric fields can be achieved easily in microfluidic systems by applying a small voltage across a device with dimensions that can be as small as the size of a cell (tens of micrometers).…”

Effect of Joule Heating on Cell Viability and Device Reliability

“…Material such as Gold, copper, silver, nickel, platinum and aluminium are mainly used as electrode in microfluidic devices [51]. The parameters including electrical conductivity, coefficient of thermal expansion, density and thermal conductivity is modelled accordingly and listed in table (5) .…”

Multi-Snapshot Imaging for Chromatographic Peak Analysis

“…It has important uses in forensics, molecular biology, biochemistry, and genetics. Specific applications include protein analysis [3] and genetic fingerprinting [4]. While next generation sequencing facilitates the precise order of nucleotides within a DNA sequence, gel electrophoresis provides an economically viable quality control stage, and is generally flexible, quick, parallelisable, reliable, and cheap.…”