5 Zones Thermocycler for Flow-Through On-Chip PCR

A microfluidic chip system for flow-through PCR reactions with an optimized thermal profile consisting of five temperature zones was presented. It allows the implementation of one PCR cycle in a half channel loop. In contrast, conventional systems with a three zones arrangement require a complete channel loop per cycle. Therefore, this arrangement increases the level of integration and allows the implementation of a 40 cycles flow-through thermocycler on the footprint of a microscope slide. To obtain a high throughput of samples in a small volume (10–100 nl), the fluidic chip device was designed to operate at segmented-flow conditions for PCR. That way, each droplet may contain a single sample that is independently processed while transported through the microchannel. To achieve stable fluidic conditions, the surface of the micro-channels was modified. In addition to the successful flow-through PCR reaction in the micro reactor, the detection of the tumor suppressor p53 for clinical diagnostics was demonstrated.