Gel Electrophoresis Chip Using Joule Heat Self-Dissipation, Short Run Time, and Online Dynamic Imaging

Abstract

Gel electrophoresis (GE) is one of the most general tools in biomedicine. However, it suffers from low resolution, and its mechanism has not been fully revealed yet. Herein, we presented the dispersion model of w 2 (t) ∝ Tt, showing the band dispersion (w) via temperature (T) and running time (t) control. Second, we designed an efficient GE chip via the time control and rapid Joule heat self-dissipation by thermal conductive plastic (TCP) and electrode buffer. Third, we conducted the simulations on TCP and polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) chips, unveiling that (i) the temperature of TCP was lower than the PMMA one, (ii) the temperature uniformity of TCP was better than the PMMA one, and (iii) the resolution of TCP was superior to the PMMA one. Fourth, we designed both TCP and PMMA chips for experimentally validating the dispersion model, TCP chip, and simulations. Finally, we applied the TCP chip to thalassemia and model urine protein assays. The TCP chip has merits of high resolution, rapid run of 6–10 min, and low cost. This work paves the way for greatly improving electrophoretic techniques in gel, chip, and capillary via temperature and time control for biologic study, biopharma quality control, clinical diagnosis, and so on.

Quadruple UV LED Array for Facile, Portable, and Online Intrinsic Fluorescent Imaging of Protein in a Whole Gel Electrophoresis Chip

“…The scaffold can support GEC. (C) GEC (4.8 × 2.5 × 0.3 cm) and its electrophoresis chamber . (D) Setting GEC on the scaffold.…”

“…The GEC developed in our previous study had a small size of 4.8 × 2.5 × 0.3 cm (Figure 1C and Figure S1B). 14 By using a cover to support the GEC and its electrophoresis chamber (Figure 1B,D), we assembled the IFI-GEC for online IFI (Figure 1E). Thanks to the compact design, the IFI-GEC had the same size as the IFI device.…”

“…The limit of detections (LODs) for BSA, LZ, and γ-Glb were 0.1, 0.04, and 0.04 μg, respectively (Table S3), which were comparable to the LODs of Coomassie Brilliant Blue (CBB) staining . The simultaneous detection of 12 parallel samples demonstrated that (i) IFI of the whole microslab gel was achieved thanks to the small size of GEC and (ii) Joule heat self-dissipation of GEC was beneficial for the repeatability (Figure C) . RSDs of band intensity and migration distance were below 5.51% and 6.46% ( n = 12), respectively (Table S3).…”

“…19 The simultaneous detection of 12 parallel samples demonstrated that (i) IFI of the whole microslab gel was achieved thanks to the small size of GEC and (ii) Joule heat self-dissipation of GEC was beneficial for the repeatability (Figure 4C). 14 RSDs of band intensity and migration distance were below 5.51% and 6.46% (n = 12), respectively (Table S3). Similar results were obtained for the detection of denatured proteins (Figure S7 and Table S4).…”

“…First, the IFI-GEC method achieved protein separation and stain-free detection within 6−10 min (Table S5). 14 However, the slab gel required 1 h of separation and 3 h of staining/destaining. Second, the IFI-GEC system provided better portability due to the small size of GEC and the compact design of the IFI-GEC device (Figure 1).…”