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Remotely tunable microfluidic platform driven by nanomaterial-mediated on-demand photothermal pumping.

ABSTRACT: The requirement of on-demand microfluidic pumps and instrument-free readout methods remains a major challenge for the development of microfluidics. Herein, a new type of microfluidic platform, an on-demand photothermal microfluidic pumping platform, has been developed using an on-chip nanomaterial-mediated photothermal effect as novel and remotely tunable microfluidic driving force. The photothermal microfluidic pumping performance can be adjusted remotely by tuning the irradiation parameters, without changing on-chip parameters or replacing enzymes or other reagents. In contrast to graphene oxide, Prussian blue nanoparticles with higher photothermal conversion efficiency were used as the model photothermal agent to demonstrate the proof of concept. The on-chip pumping distance is linearly correlated with both the irradiation time and the nanomaterial concentration. The applications of photothermal microfluidic pumping have been demonstrated in multiplexed on-chip transport of substances, such as gold nanoparticles, and visual quantitative bar-chart detection of cancer biomarkers without using specialized instruments. Upon contact-free irradiation using a laser pointer, a strong on-chip nanomaterial-mediated photothermal effect can serve as a robust and remotely tunable microfluidic pump in a PMMA/PDMS hybrid bar-chart chip to drive ink bars in a visual quantitative readout fashion. This is the first report on a photothermal microfluidic pumping platform, which has great potential for various microfluidic applications.

SUBMITTER: Fu G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7384482 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Pancreatic islets of Langerhans release glucagon to maintain blood glucose levels, and release of this peptide is dysregulated in diabetes mellitus. Although the importance of proper secretion of this peptide has been shown, no measurement of its release at the single islet level has been reported. In previous work, a non-competitive assay for glucagon was developed with a 6 pM limit of detection, low enough to measure from a single islet. To incorporate this method in an online assay, a microfluidic system with several distinct features was developed. To maintain appropriate flow rates in the presence of the high concentration of salt that was required for the assay, a piezo-actuated pressure transducer with in-line flow sensors was used to drive sample flow through 80 × 50 μm (width × depth) channels, while electroosmotic flow was used to gate the sample away from 15 × 5 μm separation channel. Flow rates tested with this system were 50 - 200 nL min-1 with relative standard deviations (RSDs) ranging from 1 - 4 %. Use of the pressure-driven flow was found to increase the amount of clogs in the system, so a method to incorporate in-line filters into the channels was developed. A total of 4 low resistance, in-line microfabricated filters were evaluated, with all designs prolonging the operation time of the microfluidic device to more than 4 hours without clogs observed. Use of this system enabled highly reproducible injections (3-6% RSD). During initial incorporation of the noncompetitive assay for glucagon, it was determined that Joule heating was problematic and temperature measurements revealed the separation channel increased to more than 50°C during operation. A 3D-printed manifold was used to hold a Peltier cooler in place on the microfluidic device which produced a 2.6-fold improvement in the amount of the noncovalent glucagon complex that was detected compared to without cooling. These features are expected to be useful for not only long-term monitoring of the glucagon release from islets of Langerhans, but has the potential to be applied to a number of other microfluidic separation-based assays as well.

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Remotely tunable microfluidic platform driven by nanomaterial-mediated on-demand photothermal pumping.

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