Shenzhen Institute of advanced research on microfluidic technology has made new progress

The research team led by Chen Yan, a research fellow at the Institute of Advanced Technology of the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Science and Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has made important progress in microfluidic technology research. Researchers have developed a high-throughput microfluidic chip for evaluating the gene expression level of tumor cells. This technology can be developed into a new technology for the early diagnosis and analysis of cancer. On June 13, relevant research results were published online on Lab on a Chip, a well-known journal in the field of international microfluidic chips.

Microfluidics is the technology and science of manipulating nanoliter-liter volumetric fluids in micron-scale structures. It is a cutting-edge crossover that has risen rapidly in the past decade. The biochemical reaction on the microfluidic chip has many advantages such as less reagents and samples, rapid real-time, parallel processing of a large number of samples, and prevention of sample cross-contamination. In the latest research, researchers from the Institute of Medical Science and Technology have constructed a unique integrated microfluidic chip that performs large-scale single-cell gene expression analysis for different types of tumor cells. The gene expression analysis at the single cell level has very important significance in the research of stem cells and tumor diseases. In cell populations, an in-depth understanding of the heterogeneity of gene expression is an important factor in understanding the occurrence and development stages of tumors, and it has great application prospects in evaluating gene stability, identifying biomarkers and personalized treatment. However, the genetic analysis of tumor cells requires the processing of a large number of cell samples. The traditional methods have the disadvantages of high work intensity and low analytical throughput. The new microfluidic technology developed this time successfully overcomes these difficulties and can simultaneously produce large quantities of them. Independent automated analysis of cells prevents cross-contamination among cells and efficiently extracts gene expression information from tumor cells.

The team designed a microchip that integrates a series of biochemical sample processing units such as single cell capture, lysis, purification, and reverse transcription. The size is five centimeters square. It can be independently addressed by the built-in pneumatic microvalve to realize the cell reaction chamber. Cell manipulation and analysis automated manipulation of the entire process. The experimental results show that the platform can assess the stability of gene expression levels in cells and distinguish tumor cells of different types and stages through the pattern of gene expression distribution at the single cell level.

This new "chip lab" technology has great potential for early tumor diagnosis.

The above research work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Guangdong Provincial Innovation Research Team Project and the Knowledge Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The research was completed by Zhang Baoyue, Feng Hongtao, and Shu Weiliang, key members of the micro-nano biochip laboratory.