A microfluidic biochip platform for electrical quantification of proteins

Lab Chip. 2018 May 15;18(10):1461-1470. doi: 10.1039/c8lc00033f.

Abstract

Sepsis, an adverse auto-immune response to an infection often causing life-threatening complications, results in the highest mortality and treatment cost of any illness in US hospitals. Several immune biomarker levels, including Interleukin 6 (IL-6), have shown a high correlation to the onset and progression of sepsis. Currently, no technology diagnoses and stratifies sepsis progression using biomarker levels. This paper reports a microfluidic biochip platform to detect proteins in undiluted human plasma samples. The device uses a differential enumeration platform that integrates Coulter counting principles, antigen specific capture chambers, and micro size bead based immunodetection to quantify cytokines. This microfluidic biochip was validated as a potential point of care technology by quantifying IL-6 from plasma samples (n = 29) with good correlation (R2 = 0.81) and agreement (Bland-Altman) compared to controls. In combination with previous applications, this point of care platform can potentially detect cell and protein biomarkers simultaneously for sepsis stratification.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Biomarkers / blood
  • Blood Proteins / analysis*
  • Humans
  • Immunoassay / methods*
  • Interleukin-6 / blood
  • Lab-On-A-Chip Devices*
  • Limit of Detection
  • Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / instrumentation*
  • Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / methods
  • Sepsis / blood
  • Sepsis / diagnosis

Substances

  • Biomarkers
  • Blood Proteins
  • Interleukin-6