Regensburg 2004 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help

SYLS: Life Sciences on the Nanometer Scale - Physics Meets Biology

SYLS 3: Symposium "Life Sciences on the Nanometer Scale - Physics Meets Biology"

SYLS 3.34: Poster

Wednesday, March 10, 2004, 16:00–18:30, B

Gel-Free Electrophoresis of λ and T2-DNA in structured PDMS Microfluidic Devices — •Thanh Tu Duong¹, Martin Streek², Alexandra Ros¹, Friederike Schmid², and Dario Anselmetti¹ — ¹Experimental Biophysics, Physics Department, Bielefeld University, Germany — ²Condensed Matter Theory, Physics Department, Bielefeld University, Germany

Electrophoresis has been established as a standard method for DNA and protein analysis which is often carried out in gels or entangled polymer solutions. With the miniaturization today’s analyses are carried out in capillaries whereas the incorporation of gels is not trivial.

In contrast to alternative methods based on artificial gel structures or entropic traps we report the successful separation of DNA in free solution in structured microfluidic channels. Single DNA molecules were stained with the bisintercalator YOYO-1 and detected with sensitive fluorescence video microscopy in 1.5, 3 and 5 µ m structured microchannels. Topographical structuring of our microchannels was achieved through rapid prototyping i.e. moulding of PDMS from a master structure made of the negative photoresist SU-8 by contact lithography.

Additionally MD-simulations are in very good agreement to experimental data resulting in the possibility of optimizing channel geometries in advance. For higher throughput parallelized separation channels are planned.