Article ID: 12we017
Mice are important laboratory animals used in biological and medical studies. Pathogen infections of laboratory mice are detected using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), which requires a large amount of serum and reduction of serum is an important issue for more frequent and detailed analysis of infections. The new serology monitoring system using a 16-microchannel microfluidic chip was developed to indentify of anti-pathogen antibodies from 0.2 μl of mouse serum, which indicates infections of six important murine pathogens: Salmonella typhimurium, Sendai virus, mouse hepatitis virus, Mycoplasma pulmonis, lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus, and ectromelia virus. To avoid the non-specific adsorption of mouse sera to a microchannel, a polyvinyl alcohol-based blocking method was developed. To equalize the sensitivity of different antigens, deposition quantities of pathogen antigens were optimized utilizing the precision spotting of the the electrospray deposition method. A comparative study with the conventional ELISA method was carried out and the developed microfluidic chip system was able to detect simultaneously and specifically antibodies against the above six pathogens with good linearity (R2 = 0.955-0.966) in 12 minutes with reduced serum (1/13), reaction time (1/16), and antigen quantities (1/19-1/2,800). Validation using a serum panel (n = 501) also showed good agreement with previous results.
