The goal of this study is to develop the rapid microfluidic protein chip to detect highly toxic bioterror pathogens of Francisella tularensis, Brucella abortus, Yersinia pestis, Vaccinia virus, Bacillus anthrax. Vibrio cholerae, Ricin, Staph enterot...
The goal of this study is to develop the rapid microfluidic protein chip to detect highly toxic bioterror pathogens of Francisella tularensis, Brucella abortus, Yersinia pestis, Vaccinia virus, Bacillus anthrax. Vibrio cholerae, Ricin, Staph enterotoxin B, Botulinum toxin. This kit is devised to use on-site or in the working field with a portable fluorescence detector. The microfluidic protein chip is an integrated microchannel network containing all necessary components such as sample application area, surface fluidic microchannels of stepwise reaction chambers, reaction controlling mechanics and detection sensor that are required to detect the fluoresence sensor signal. The major technologies involved for this goal can be divided into 4 groups; development of content, device, detector and microfluidic protein chip. 1) Contents development: Each antibody of nine kinds of toxic pathogens was developed, the fluorescence tracer was synthesized to develop antibody-fluorescence conjugate which is utilized as a sensor signal for a detector. 2) Device development- A plastic microfluidic device was designed based on the simulation study of reagent flow on the surface microchannel. The final mold design was selected by optimization studies of mold size, mold construction, injection and ejection molding methods, gate types, resins used. A batch of mass production was carried out using a optimized mold 3) Development of the sensor signal detector: To detect fluorescence signaJ of phthalocyanine coryugate, a fluorescence detector was developed for the proportional detection of signal against fluorescence concentration building with the laser diode and photodiode. 4) Development of the microfluidic protein chip technology: A plateform of the protein chip was developed for the one-step measurement of highly toxic bioterror chemicals with high detection sensitivity. The optimized technologies involved s microchannel construction on a plastic device (solvent or ultrasonic adhesion methods), reagent immobilization on the microchannel network (covalent or adsoption methods), and surface treatment process for smooth reagent flow (O2 plasma or S於2 CVD). Antibodies of eight toxic bioterror chemicals (Francisella Cularensis, Brucella abortus, Yersinia pestis, Vaccinia virus, Bacillus anthrax, Vibrio cholerae, Ricin, Staph, enterotoxin B) were developed and tracers of each antibody-phthalocyanine fluorescence conjugate was synthesized for the microfluidic detection of the corresponding chemicals. A microfluidic chip technology was established by optimizing the technologies such as the total systemic examination of the design, interpretation of fluidic characters, mold construction, injection and adhesion method. Also, a prototype fluoresence detector was constructed that is useful to detect the signal in a range of Infra-red wavelength. When the detection sensitivity of each toxic chemical using the microfluidic system was compared with the existing rapid chromatography system, the results indicate that the sensitivity of microfluidic system (1.25 x 104 、5 x 104cfu/mL) is 2 to 8 times more sensitive than that of rapid chromatography system (105 cfu/mL) for Francisella tularensis, Brucella abortus, Yersinia pesds, Vaccinia vims, Bacillus anthrax and Vibrio cholera and 2 to 4 times more sensitive than that of rapid chromatography system for Staph, enterotoxin B(5 ng/mL), Ricin(lZ5 ng/mL) and Botulinum toxin(125 ng/mL). A palteform of the micrfluidic protein chip was developed successfully to detect highly toxic chemicals, and the effectiveness of the system was validated using nine kinds of bioterror toxic pathogens. Further studies are required to settle the sensitive and reproducible microfluidic protein chip technologies that include generation of stronger sensor signal, synthesis modification of fluorescence conjugate tracer, device construction for better microchannel network to control the reaction steps and construction of a simple and portable detector. M^jor progress to solve above issues will be reported and SD will produce the commercial products of bioterror toxic pathogens using the microfluidic protein chip technology in future.