Utility of lab-on-a-chip technology for high-throughput nucleic acid and protein analysis

Abstract

On-chip electrophoresis can provide size separations of nucleic acids and proteins similar to more traditional slab gel electrophoresis. Lab-on-a-chip (LoaC) systems utilize on-chip electrophoresis in conjunction with sizing calibration, sensitive detection schemes, and sophisticated data analysis to achieve rapid analysis times (<120 s). This work describes the utility of LoaC systems to enable and augment systems biology investigations. RNA quality, as assessed by an RNA integrity number score, is compared to existing quality control (QC) measurements. High-throughput DNA analysis of multiplex PCR samples is used to stratify gene sets for disease discovery. Finally, the applicability of a high-throughput LoaC system for assessing protein purification is demonstrated. The improvements in workflow processes, speed of analysis, data accuracy and reproducibility, and automated data analysis are illustrated.

Crystal Structures of Human ADAMTS-1 Reveal a Conserved Catalytic Domain and a Disintegrin-like Domain with a Fold Homologous to Cysteine-Rich Domains

“…The media were purified on 100 μl of Ni-NTA Superflow in Qiafilter plates and eluted with 300 μl of buffer, and purified samples were analysed on the automated lab-on-chip platform system. 37 The five constructs containing a thrombin cleavage site were expressed in Sf21 cells at 1-l scale for a more detailed analysis. Subsequently, three of these constructs were similarly expressed at a 5-l scale to generate materials for crystallisation.…”

RNA quality in frozen breast cancer samples and the influence on gene expression analysis – a comparison of three evaluation methods using microcapillary electrophoresis traces

“…Therefore new techniques have been developed, e.g . the Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer [7]. The Bioanalyzer is based on a lab-on-a-chip micro-fluids technology, and the software generates an electropherogram and a gel-like image.…”

Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis of PCR-Amplified Fragments (PCR-RFLP) and Gel Electrophoresis - Valuable Tool for Genotyping and Genetic Fingerprinting

“…For example, separation of nucleic acids and proteins can be completed in less than 120 sec using on-chip electrophoresis (Hawtin et al, 2005). Moreover, an electrophoresis system consisting of 110 µm wide and 630 µm deep microchannels with an effective separation distance of 3 cm was capable of resolving an amplicon digest, composed of fragments with sizes up to 184 bp, in 280 sec (Qin et al, 2005).…”