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Updated: Jun 8, 2026
Visual Detection of Multiple Nucleic Acids in a Capillary Array
Published on: November 15, 2017
Novel concept microarray enabling PCR and multistep reactions through pipette-free aperture-to-aperture parallel
Yasunori Kinoshita1, Takahiro Tayama, Koichiro Kitamura
1Department of Functional Materials Science, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, 255 Shimo-okubo, Saitama 338-8570, Japan.
Background:
The microarray has contributed to developing the omic analysis. However, as it depends basically on the surface reaction, it is hard to perform bulk reactions and sequential multistep reactions. On the other hand, the popular microplate technology, which has a great merit of being able to perform parallel multistep reactions, has come to its limit in increasing the number of wells (currently, up to 9600) and reducing the volume to deal with due to the difficulty in operations.
Results:
Here, we report a novel microarray technology which enables us to explore advanced applications, termed microarray-with-manageable volumes (MMV). The technical essence is in the pipette-free direct parallel transfer from well to well performed by centrifugation, evading the evaporation and adsorption-losses during handling. By developing the MMV plate, accompanying devices and techniques, generation of multiple conditions (256 kinds) and performance of parallel multistep reactions, including PCR and in vitro translation reactions, have been made possible. These were demonstrated by applying the MMV technology to searching lysozyme-crystallizing conditions and selecting peptides aimed for Aβ-binding or cathepsin E-inhibition.
Conclusions:
With the introduction of a novel concept microarray (MMV) technology, parallel and multistep reactions in sub-μL scale have become possible.
