Issue 16, 2022

Parallel multistep digital analysis SlipChip demonstrated with the quantification of nucleic acid by digital LAMP-CRISPR

Abstract

Digital biological analysis compartmentalizes targets of interest, such as nucleic acids, proteins, and cells, to a single event level and performs detection and further investigation. Microfluidic-based digital biological analysis methods, including digital PCR, digital protein analysis, and digital cell analysis, have demonstrated superior advantages in research applications and clinical diagnostics. However, most of the methods are still based on a one-step “divide and detect” strategy, and it is challenging for these methods to perform further parallel manipulation of reaction partitions to achieve “divide, manipulate, and analyze” capabilities. Here, we present a parallel multistep digital analysis (PAMDA) SlipChip for the parallel multistep manipulation of a large number of droplets for digital biological analysis, demonstrated by the quantification of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acids by a two-step digital isothermal amplification combined with clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR). This PAMDA SlipChip utilizes a “chain-of-pearl” channel with a self-partitioning droplet formation mechanism that does not require the precise alignment of microfeatures for fluidic loading as the traditional SlipChip design. This device can first generate 2400 3.2 nanoliter droplets to perform digital loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) and then deliver reagents containing Cas12a protein and crRNA to each individual partition in parallel to simultaneously initiate digital CRISPR detection by a simple multistep slipping operation. This PAMDA SlipChip not only provides a promising tool to perform digital CRISPR with a flexible assay and workflow design but can also be applied for a broad range of applications in digital biological analysis that require multistep manipulation of partitions in parallel.

Graphical abstract: Parallel multistep digital analysis SlipChip demonstrated with the quantification of nucleic acid by digital LAMP-CRISPR

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
26 Mas 2022
Accepted
03 Jun 2022
First published
07 Jun 2022

Lab Chip, 2022,22, 2954-2961

Parallel multistep digital analysis SlipChip demonstrated with the quantification of nucleic acid by digital LAMP-CRISPR

Z. Yu, L. Xu, W. Lyu and F. Shen, Lab Chip, 2022, 22, 2954 DOI: 10.1039/D2LC00284A

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements