MRSA Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about MRSA, including details on methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, hospitals, infection, antibiotic resistance, superbugs.

Microfluidic genetic analysis with an integrated a-Si:H detector.

Kamei T, Toriello NM, Lagally ET, Blazej RG, Scherer JR, Street RA, Mathies RA

Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. toshi-kamei@aist.go.jp

We have developed an integrated hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) fluorescence detector for microfluidic genetic analysis. It consists of a half-ball lens, a ZnS/YF3 multilayer optical interference filter with a pinhole, and an annular a-Si:H PIN photodiode allowing the laser excitation to pass up through the central aperture in the photodiode and the filter. Microfluidic separations of multiplex PCR products generated from methicillin-resistant/sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA/MSSA) DNA on microfluidic capillary electrophoresis (CE) devices are successfully detected with the integrated detector. Similarly, multiplex PCR amplicons from the kanamycin resistant and K12 serotype-specific genes of E. coli cells are detected. The direct detection of multiplex PCR amplicons indicates that the fluorescence detector can be successfully coupled with current microfluidic PCR-CE platforms. This work establishes that the integrated a-Si:H detector provides relevant limits of detection for point-of-care genetic and pathogen analysis with microfluidic devices.

Published 7 June 2005 in Biomed Microdevices, 7(2): 147-52.
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