Digital droplet immunoassay based on a microfluidic chip with magnetic beads for the detection of prostate-specific antigen

Sensitive biomarker detection techniques are beneficial for both disease diagnosis and postoperative examinations. In this study, we report an integrated microfluidic chip designed for the immunodetection of prostate-specific antigens (PSAs). The microfluidic chip is based on the three-dimensional structure of quartz capillaries. The outlet channel extends to 1.8 cm, effectively facilitating the generation of uniform droplets ranging in size from 3 to 50 μm. Furthermore, we successfully immobilized the captured antibodies onto the surface of magnetic beads using an activator, and we constructed an immunosandwich complex by employing biotinylated antibodies. A key feature of this microfluidic chip is its integration of microfluidic droplet technology advantages, such as high-throughput parallelism, enzymatic signal amplification, and small droplet size. This integration results in an exceptionally sensitive PSA detection capability, with the detection limit reduced to 7.00 ± 0.62 pg/mL.