Acoustic aggregation-induced separation for enhanced fluorescence detection of Alzheimer's biomarker

On-chip microparticle-based separation is a significant activity in analytical and biomedical field. Here, we reported an acoustic aggregation-induced microparticle separation for on-chip fluorescence detection of Alzheimer biomarkers. miRNA-101, an Alzheimer-related biomarker, was used as a model target to validate the performance of the acoustic aggregation-induced separation assay. Under the ultrasound filed, the microparticles would move toward the centre of chip by simply adjusting the frequency and voltage. Such particle aggregation further resulted in fluorescence enhancement comparing with single microparticle. This approach integrated acoustic aggregation-induced microparticle separation with fluorescence enhancement, holding great potential application for the development of lab-on-a-chip based trace biomarkers detection in diagnosis field.