Microfluidic Device Directly Fabricated on Screen-Printed Electrodes for Ultrasensitive Electrochemical Sensing of PSA

Shouhui Chen,Linlei Jiang,Zhihua Wang,Zhihong Nie,Xianting Ding,Pei Zhou,Yuee Zhi,Xinyuan Cui,Daxiang Cui

doi:10.1186/s11671-019-2857-6

Abstract

How to fabricate scale low-cost microfluidic device for detection of biomarkers owns a great requirement. Herein, it is for the first time reported that a new microfluidic device based on bonding polydimethylsiloxane microfluidic channels onto the substrate of a screen-printed electrode with coating glass solution was fabricated for electrochemical sensing of prostate-specific antigen (PSA). Compared to traditional microfabrication processes, this method is simple, fast, low cost, and also suitable for mass production. The prepared screen-printed electrode-based microfluidic device (CASPE-MFD) was used for the detection of the PSA in human serum. The prepared CASPE-MFD had a detection limit of 0.84 pg/mL (25.8 fM) and a good linearity with PSA concentration ranging from 0.001 to 10 ng/mL, which showed a great promise platform toward the development of miniaturized, low-cost electrochemical microfluidic device for use in human health, environmental monitoring, and other applications.

Highlights

A solution of fluorescent microbeads was injected into the channels of a CASPEMFD at a 5-μL/min flow rate, and it is obvious that every corner of the CASPE-microfluidic devices (MFDs) was filled with the solution of fluorescent microbeads and no bubble was formed in the device (Fig. 2)
The flow rate was increased to 100 μL/min in order to prove the robustness of the CASPE-MFD, which showed that the device is suitable for analyte detection
We have developed a simple, low-cost, and portable commercial screen-printed electrode-based microfluidic electrochemical sensing

Summary

Introduction

Microfluidic system is the process of manipulation of fluids of small volume (10−9 to 10−18 L) within channels with a dimension of tens to hundreds of micrometers [1]. This technology has shown great potential in biomedicine, environmental monitoring, and food safety analysis. Microfluidic devices (MFDs) typically exhibit the following advantages, including small footprints, reduced consumption of reagents, multiple sample detection in parallel, increased reliability, sensitivity, and high and large-scale integration [2–4]. The application of electrochemical sensors for biomolecule detection is promising since electrochemical sensors exhibit numerous advantages such as high sensitivity and selectivity, reliable reproducibility, simple use for continuous on-site analysis, minimal sample preparation, relatively low cost, and short-time response. Electrochemical system can be integrated within a microfluidic system [6, 7], and this offers advantages over a conventional analytical platform [8–10], such as ease in sample preparation, excellent sensitivity and versatility, and the removal of bulky optical components [11, 12]

Methods

Results

Conclusion