An aptamer-based magnetic flow cytometer using matched filtering

Sample-to-answer sensing technologies for nucleic acid preparation and detection in the field

Efficient sample preparation and accurate disease diagnosis under field conditions are of great importance for the early intervention of diseases in humans, animals, and plants. However, in-field preparation of high-quality nucleic acids from various specimens for downstream analyses, such as amplification and sequencing, is challenging. Thus, developing and adapting sample lysis and nucleic acid extraction protocols suitable for portable formats have drawn significant attention. Similarly, various nucleic acid amplification techniques and detection methods have also been explored. Combining these functions in an integrated platform has resulted in emergent sample-to-answer sensing systems that allow effective disease detection and analyses outside a laboratory. Such devices have a vast potential to improve healthcare in resource-limited settings, low-cost and distributed surveillance of diseases in food and agriculture industries, environmental monitoring, and defense against biological warfare and terrorism. This paper reviews recent advances in portable sample preparation technologies and facile detection methods that have been / or could be adopted into novel sample-to-answer devices. In addition, recent developments and challenges of commercial kits and devices targeting on-site diagnosis of various plant diseases are discussed.

Highly stable integration of graphene Hall sensors on a microfluidic platform for magnetic sensing in whole blood

The detection and analysis of rare cells in complex media such as blood is increasingly important in biomedical research and clinical diagnostics. Micro-Hall detectors (μHD) for magnetic detection in blood have previously demonstrated ultrahigh sensitivity to rare cells. This sensitivity originates from the minimal magnetic background in blood, obviating cumbersome and detrimental sample preparation. However, the translation of this technology to clinical applications has been limited by inherently low throughput (<1 mL/h), susceptibility to clogging, and incompatibility with commercial CMOS foundry processing. To help overcome these challenges, we have developed CMOS-compatible graphene Hall sensors for integration with PDMS microfluidics for magnetic sensing in blood. We demonstrate that these graphene μHDs can match the performance of the best published μHDs, can be passivated for robust use with whole blood, and can be integrated with microfluidics and sensing electronics for in-flow detection of magnetic beads. We show a proof-of-concept validation of our system on a silicon substrate and detect magnetic agarose beads, as a model for cells, demonstrating promise for future integration in clinical applications with a custom CMOS chip.

The next generation of hybrid microfluidic/integrated circuit chips: recent and upcoming advances in high-speed, high-throughput, and multifunctional lab-on-IC systems

Since the field's inception, pioneers in microfluidics have made significant progress towards realizing complete lab-on-chip systems capable of sophisticated sample analysis and processing. One avenue towards this goal has been to join forces with the related field of microelectronics, using integrated circuits (ICs) to perform on-chip actuation and sensing. While early demonstrations focused on using microfluidic-IC hybrid chips to miniaturize benchtop instruments, steady advancements in the field have enabled a new generation of devices that expand past miniaturization into high-performance applications that would not be possible without IC hybrid integration. In this review, we identify recent examples of labs-on-chip that use high-resolution, high-speed, and multifunctional electronic and photonic chips to expand the capabilities of conventional sample analysis. We focus on three particularly active areas: a) high-throughput integrated flow cytometers; b) large-scale microelectrode arrays for stimulation and multimodal sensing of cells over a wide field of view; c) high-speed biosensors for studying molecules with high temporal resolution. We also discuss recent advancements in IC technology, including on-chip data processing techniques and lens-free optics based on integrated photonics, that are poised to further advance microfluidic-IC hybrid chips.

Recent advances in microfluidics for single-cell functional proteomics

Single-cell proteomics (SCP) reveals phenotypic heterogeneity by profiling individual cells, their biological states and functional outcomes upon signaling activation that can hardly be probed via other omics characterizations. This has become appealing to researchers as it enables an overall more holistic view of biological details underlying cellular processes, disease onset and progression, as well as facilitates unique biomarker identification from individual cells. Microfluidic-based strategies have become methods of choice for single-cell analysis because they allow facile assay integrations, such as cell sorting, manipulation, and content analysis. Notably, they have been serving as an enabling technology to improve the sensitivity, robustness, and reproducibility of recently developed SCP methods. Critical roles of microfluidics technologies are expected to further expand rapidly in advancing the next phase of SCP analysis to reveal more biological and clinical insights. In this review, we will capture the excitement of the recent achievements of microfluidics methods for both targeted and global SCP, including efforts to enhance the proteomic coverage, minimize sample loss, and increase multiplexity and throughput. Furthermore, we will discuss the advantages, challenges, applications, and future prospects of SCP.

Development of constrictional microchannels and the recurrent neural network in single-cell protein analysis

Introduction: As the golden approach of single-cell analysis, fluorescent flow cytometry can estimate single-cell proteins with high throughputs, which, however, cannot translate fluorescent intensities into protein numbers. Methods: This study reported a fluorescent flow cytometry based on constrictional microchannels for quantitative measurements of single-cell fluorescent levels and the recurrent neural network for data analysis of fluorescent profiles for high-accuracy cell-type classification. Results: As a demonstration, fluorescent profiles (e.g., FITC labeled β-actin antibody, PE labeled EpCAM antibody and PerCP labeled β-tubulin antibody) of individual A549 and CAL 27 cells were firstly measured and translated into protein numbers of 0.56 ± 0.43 × 10⁴, 1.78 ± 1.0⁶ × 10⁶ and 8.11 ± 4.89 × 10⁴ of A549 cells (n_cell = 10232), and 3.47 ± 2.45 × 10⁴, 2.65 ± 1.19 × 10⁶ and 8.61 ± 5.25 × 10⁴ of CAL 27 cells (n_cell = 16376) based on the equivalent model of the constrictional microchannel. Then, the feedforward neural network was used to process these single-cell protein expressions, producing a classification accuracy of 92.0% for A549 vs. CAL 27 cells. In order to further increase the classification accuracies, as a key subtype of the recurrent neural network, the long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network was adopted to process fluorescent pulses sampled in constrictional microchannels directly, producing a classification accuracy of 95.5% for A549 vs. CAL 27 cells after optimization. Discussion: This fluorescent flow cytometry based on constrictional microchannels and recurrent neural network can function as an enabling tool of single-cell analysis and contribute to the development of quantitative cell biology.

Biosensors and Drug Delivery in Oncotheranostics Using Inorganic Synthetic and Biogenic Magnetic Nanoparticles

Magnetic nanocarriers have attracted attention in translational oncology due to their ability to be employed both for tumor diagnostics and therapy. This review summarizes data on applications of synthetic and biogenic magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) in oncological theranostics and related areas. The basics of both types of MNPs including synthesis approaches, structure, and physicochemical properties are discussed. The properties of synthetic MNPs and biogenic MNPs are compared with regard to their antitumor therapeutic efficiency, diagnostic potential, biocompatibility, and cellular toxicity. The comparative analysis demonstrates that both synthetic and biogenic MNPs could be efficiently used for cancer theranostics, including biosensorics and drug delivery. At the same time, reduced toxicity of biogenic particles was noted, which makes them advantageous for in vivo applications, such as drug delivery, or MRI imaging of tumors. Adaptability to surface modification based on natural biochemical processes is also noted, as well as good compatibility with tumor cells and proliferation in them. Advances in the bionanotechnology field should lead to the implementation of MNPs in clinical trials.

Recent advances in the selection of cancer-specific aptamers for the development of biosensors

An early diagnosis has the potential to greatly decrease cancer mortality. For that purpose, specific cancer biomarkers have been molecularly targeted by aptamer sequences to enable an accurate and rapid detection. Aptamer-based biosensors for cancer diagnostics are a promising alternative to those using antibodies, due to their high affinity and specificity to the target molecules and advantageous production. Synthetic nucleic acid aptamers are generated by in vitro Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential enrichment (SELEX) methodologies that have been improved over the years to enhance the efficacy and to shorten the selection process. Aptamers have been successfully applied in electrochemical, optical, photoelectrochemical and piezoelectrical-based detection strategies. These aptasensors comprise a sensitive, accurate and inexpensive option for cancer detection being used as point-of-care devices. This review highlights the recent advances in cancer biomarkers, achievements and optimizations made in aptamer selection, as well as the different aptasensors developed for the detection of several cancer biomarkers.

Rapid Drug-Screening Platform Using Field-Effect Transistor-Based Biosensors: A Study of Extracellular Drug Effects on Transmembrane Potentials

Ion channel-modulating drugs play an important role in treating cardiovascular diseases. Facing the demands for continuous monitoring of drug effectiveness, the conventional techniques have become limited when investigating a long-term cellular physiology. To address the challenge, we propose a drug-screening platform using the stretch-out electrical double layer (EDL)-gated field-effect transistor-based biosensors (BioFETs). In this work, BioFETs were utilized to amplify electrophysiological signals from the mammalian cardiomyocytes (H9c2). The stretch-out configuration avoided a chemical corrosion on FETs and prolonged the lifetime of a BioFET system. A physical model is presented to elucidate the signal response to a drug effect on a cell. Fibronectin and gelatin were coated on sensors and served as the adhesive layers where H9c2 cells attached. BioFETs demonstrated an ability to qualitatively distinguish a depolarization and a polarization of the cytomembranes. The signal responses to the changes of transmembrane potentials were monitored in real-time, and they were highly correlated. The effects of nifedipine and calcium ions on cellular electrophysiology were examined and discussed. Due to the capability of a rapid detection, a prolonged lifetime, and an excellent sensitivity to an electrical change, a stretch-out EDL-gated BioFET can be a drug-screening platform for ion channel modulators.

Hitting the diagnostic sweet spot: Point-of-care SARS-CoV-2 salivary antigen testing with an off-the-shelf glucometer

Significant barriers to the diagnosis of latent and acute SARS-CoV-2 infection continue to hamper population-based screening efforts required to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in the absence of widely available antiviral therapeutics or vaccines. We report an aptamer-based SARS-CoV-2 salivary antigen assay employing only low-cost reagents ($3.20/test) and an off-the-shelf glucometer. The test was engineered around a glucometer as it is quantitative, easy to use, and the most prevalent piece of diagnostic equipment globally, making the test highly scalable with an infrastructure that is already in place. Furthermore, many glucometers connect to smartphones, providing an opportunity to integrate with contact tracing apps, medical providers, and electronic health records. In clinical testing, the developed assay detected SARS-CoV-2 infection in patient saliva across a range of viral loads - as benchmarked by RT-qPCR - within 1 h, with 100% sensitivity (positive percent agreement) and distinguished infected specimens from off-target antigens in uninfected controls with 100% specificity (negative percent agreement). We propose that this approach provides an inexpensive, rapid, and accurate diagnostic for distributed screening of SARS-CoV-2 infection at scale.

A toehold-mediated strand displacement cascade-based DNA assay method via flow cytometry and magnetic separation

Sensitive assay of EGFR T790M, a circulating tumor DNA marker in non-small-cell carcinoma, provides critical information for the decision of clinical treatments, evaluation of radiotherapy effect, and monitoring the progress of recurrence and metastasis. In this report, a novel flow cytometry-based sensing method is proposed for detecting T790M. The toehold-sequence hybridizes with the biotin-labeled initiator sequence and forms IT-dsDNA. The presence of a target induces the displacement of initiator-sequence from IT-dsDNA. The targets are continuously set free with the aid of a helper hairpin sequence for the next cycle. In tandem, the free initiator sequence starts the hybridization chain reaction, which binds the serial of fluorescence-labeled probe sequences. The products of the hybridization chain reaction are captured and separated by magnetic beads, which are finally assayed via flow cytometry. The capability to distinguish single-nucleotide polymorphism and the tolerance of complex matrix in blood serum indicate that this strategy has the promising potential to be applied in the liquid biopsy of clinical samples.