Improving the separation efficiency of DNA biosamples in capillary electrophoresis microchips using high-voltage pulsed DC electric fields

Abstract

This paper proposes a simple method for enhancing the separation efficiency of DNA biosamples in a capillary electrophoresis (CE) microchip by using highvoltage pulsed DC electric fields. A high-voltage amplifier is used to establish electric fields of up to 1 kHz to carry out CE separation; electrophoresis and electroosmotic effects are then pulsely induced. The experimental and numerical investigations commence by separating a mixed sample comprising two fluoresceins with virtually identical physical properties, namely Rhodamine B and Rhodamine 6G. It is found that the level of separation is approximately 2.1 times higher than that achieved using a conventional DC electric field of the same intensity. The performance of the proposed method is further evaluated by separating a DNA sample of HaeIII digested UX-174 ladder. The experimental results indicate that the separation level of the neighboring peaks 5a and 5b in the DNA marker is approximately 1.2, which is significantly higher than the value of 0.8 obtained using a CE scheme with a conventional DC electric field. The improved separation performance of the proposed pulsed DC electric field approach is attributed to a lower Joule heating effect as a result of a lower average power input and the opportunity for heat dissipation during the zero-voltage stage of the pulse cycle. Overall, the results demonstrate that the method proposed in this study provides a simple, low-cost technique for achieving a high separation performance in CE microchips.

Electrophoresis separation and electrochemical detection on a novel thread-based microfluidic device

“…Capillary electrophoresis is a powerful technique for separating and analyzing samples in a short time (Lin et al 2008;Prakash et al 2008). However, conventional CE devices rely on fabricating real microchannels in glass, PMMA or PDMS for delivering and separating samples (Cai and Neyer 2010;Hong et al 2010;Hug et al 2006;Hupert et al 2007;Zhu and Petkovic-Duran 2010).…”

Numerical analysis of a rapid magnetic microfluidic mixer

“…[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. These devices offer significant advantages over their traditional counterparts, including reduced reagent and sample consumption, improved sensitivity, faster response time, lower power consumption, greater portability, lower fabrication and operating costs.…”

Acetic acid denaturing pulsed field capillary electrophoresis for RNA separation

“…PFCE has the advantage of separation of long DNA fragments in addition to the advantages of conventional CE, such as high resolution, fast speed, excellent reproducibility and so on, therefore, it is widely employed for the analysis of single and double-stranded DNA [1][2][3]. In RNA sequential size separation, CE was also employed with denaturing two or more co-existing stable conformers in RNA fragments by carboxylic acid representing acetic acid [4].…”