On-chip Paper Electrophoresis for Ultrafast Screening of Infectious Diseases

Hamin Na,Ki-Hun Jeong,Jayoung Ku,Byoung-Hoon Kang,Yoosik Kim

doi:10.1007/s13206-021-00034-z

Hamin Na, Ki-Hun Jeong + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13206-021-00034-z

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Abstract

The outbreak of new viral strains promotes advances in universal diagnostic techniques for detecting infectious diseases with unknown viral sequence. Long double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), a hallmark of infections, serves as a virus marker for prompt detection of viruses with unknown genomes. Here, we report on-chip paper electrophoresis for ultrafast screening of infectious diseases. Negatively charged RNAs pass through the micro and nanoscale pores of cellulose in order of size under an external electric field applied to the paper microfluidic channel. Quantitative separation of long dsRNA mimicking poly I:C was analyzed from 1.67 to 33 ng·μL−1, which is close to the viral dsRNA concentration in infected cells. This paper-based capillary electrophoresis chip (paper CE chip) can provide a new diagnostic platform for ultrafast viral disease detection at the point-of-care (POC) level.

Highlights

Infectious disease diagnostics aims at rapid diagnosis and isolation of patients to prevent further propagation of virus and introduction of new, and mutant strains
The whole operation from electrophoretic separation to RNA detection was performed with fully packaged paper-based CE device including the paper CE chip and a polylactic acid (PLA) housing (Fig. 2a)
An external electric field is applied to the paper CE chip through the electrodes

Summary

Introduction

Infectious disease diagnostics aims at rapid diagnosis and isolation of patients to prevent further propagation of virus and introduction of new, and mutant strains. Long dsRNA is produced abundantly as an intermediate of viral replication in human cells [6, 7] infected by various viruses, including positive-stranded RNA viruses, DNA viruses, dsRNA viruses [8], single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) viruses and a few negative-stranded RNA viruses [9]. Such intrinsic features of long dsRNA rationalize the use of long dsRNA as the universal virus marker and encourage the development of detection methods [10, 11]. The integration of separation prior to detection of viral dsRNA is very crucial for rapid, and precise diagnosis of the infectious disease

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