3D porous sol-gel matrix incorporated microdevice for effective large volume cell sample pretreatment

In this study, we demonstrated an effective sample pretreatment microdevice that could perform the capture, purification, and release of pathogenic bacteria with a large-volume sample and at a high speed and high-capture yield. We integrated a sol-gel matrix into the microdevice which forms three-dimensional (3D) micropores for the cell solution to pass through and provides a large surface area for the immobilization of antibodies to capture the target Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) cells. The antibody was linked to the surface of the sol-gel via a photocleavable linker, allowing the cell-captured antibody moiety to be released by UV irradiation. In addition to the optimization of the antibody immobilization and UV cleavage processes, the cell-capture efficiency was maximized by controlling the sample flow rate with a pumping scheme (3 steps, 5 steps: 3 steps with one flutter step, 7 steps: 3 steps with two flutter steps) and the pumping time (100, 200, and 300 ms). A quantitative capture analysis was performed by targeting a specific gene site of protein A of S. aureus in real-time PCR (RT-PCR). While the 3-step process with an actuation time of 100 ms showed the fastest flow rate (1 mL sample processing time in 10 min), the pumping scheme with the 7-step process and the 300 ms actuation time revealed the highest cell-capture efficiency. A limit of detection study with the 7-step and the 300 ms pumping scheme demonstrated that 100 cells per 100 μL were detected with a 70% yield, and even a single cell could be analyzed via on-chip sample preparation. Thus, our novel sol-gel based microdevice was proven more cost-effective, simple, and efficient in terms of its sample pretreatment ability compared to the use of a conventional 2D flat microdevice. This proposed sample pretreatment device can be further incorporated to an analytical functional unit to realize a micrototal analysis system (μTAS) with sample-in-answer-out capability in the fields of biomedical diagnostics, food safety testing, and environmental pollutant screening.