Pressure-actuated microfluidic devices for electrophoretic separation of pre-term birth biomarkers

We have developed microfluidic devices with pressure-driven injection for electrophoretic analysis of amino acids, peptides, and proteins. The novelty of our approach lies in the use of an externally actuated on-chip peristaltic pump and closely spaced pneumatic valves that allow well-defined, small-volume sample plugs to be injected and separated by microchip electrophoresis. We fabricated three-layer poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) microfluidic devices. The fluidic layer had injection and separation channels, and the control layer had an externally actuated on-chip peristaltic pump and four pneumatic valves around the T-intersection to carry out sample injection. An unpatterned PDMS membrane layer was sandwiched between the fluidic and control layers as the actuated component in pumps and valves. Devices with the same peristaltic pump design but different valve spacings (100, 200, 300, and 400 μm) from the injection intersection were fabricated using soft lithographic techniques. Devices were characterized through fluorescent imaging of captured plugs of a fluorescein-labeled amino acid mixture and through microchip electrophoresis separations. A suitable combination of peak height, separation efficiency, and analysis time was obtained with a peristaltic pump actuation rate of 50 ms, an injection time of 30 s, and a 200-μm valve spacing. We demonstrated the injection of samples in different solutions and were able to achieve a 2.4-fold improvement in peak height and a 2.8-fold increase in separation efficiency though sample stacking. A comparison of pressure-driven injection and electrokinetic injection with the same injection time and separation voltage showed a 3.9-fold increase in peak height in pressure-based injection with comparable separation efficiency. Finally, the microchip systems were used to separate biomarkers implicated in pre-term birth. Although these devices have initially been demonstrated as a stand-alone microfluidic separation tool, they have strong potential to be integrated within more complex systems.