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Toward a solid-phase nucleic acid hybridization assay within microfluidic channels using immobilized quantum dots as donors in fluorescence resonance energy transfer

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Abstract

The optical properties and surface area of quantum dots (QDs) have made them an attractive platform for the development of nucleic acid biosensors based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET). Solid-phase assays based on FRET using mixtures of immobilized QD–oligonucleotide conjugates (QD biosensors) have been developed. The typical challenges associated with solid-phase detection strategies include non-specific adsorption, slow kinetics of hybridization, and sample manipulation. The new work herein has considered the immobilization of QD biosensors onto the surfaces of microfluidic channels in order to address these challenges. Microfluidic flow can be used to dynamically control stringency by adjustment of the potential in an electrokinetic-based microfluidics environment. The shearing force, Joule heating, and the competition between electroosmotic and electrophoretic mobilities allow the optimization of hybridization conditions, convective delivery of target to the channel surface to speed hybridization, amelioration of adsorption, and regeneration of the sensing surface. Microfluidic flow can also be used to deliver (for immobilization) and remove QD biosensors. QDs that were conjugated with two different oligonucleotide sequences were used to demonstrate feasibility. One oligonucleotide sequence on the QD was available as a linker for immobilization via hybridization with complementary oligonucleotides located on a glass surface within a microfluidic channel. A second oligonucleotide sequence on the QD served as a probe to transduce hybridization with target nucleic acid in a sample solution. A Cy3 label on the target was excited by FRET using green-emitting CdSe/ZnS QD donors and provided an analytical signal to explore this detection strategy. The immobilized QDs could be removed under denaturing conditions by disrupting the duplex that was used as the surface linker and thus allowed a new layer of QD biosensors to be re-coated within the channel for re-use of the microfluidic chip.

Schematic view of detection of nucleic acid hybridization within microfluidic channels using immobilized quantum dots as donors in fluorescence resonance energy transfer

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Acknowledgement

The authors gratefully acknowledge the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for financial support of this research. WRA is grateful to the Government of Ontario for provision of a graduate fellowship. We thank Omair Noor in the Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences, University of Toronto Mississauga, for useful discussions.

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Correspondence to Ulrich J. Krull.

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Published in the special issue Nanomaterials for Improved Analytical Processes with Guest Editors Miguel Valcárcel and Bartolomé M. Simonet

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Chen, L., Algar, W.R., Tavares, A.J. et al. Toward a solid-phase nucleic acid hybridization assay within microfluidic channels using immobilized quantum dots as donors in fluorescence resonance energy transfer. Anal Bioanal Chem 399, 133–141 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-010-4309-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-010-4309-0

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