Integrated Microfluidic System for Mechanical Agitation-Based Cell Lysis and Fluorescence Detection Using Reduced Amount of Reagent

Cell lysis is fundamental yet crucial for downstream bioassays. The use of chemical reagents will directly affect the subsequent workflows. Important research involving microfluidics is emerging in cell lysis, for its merits in less reagent usage and high automation of agent manipulation. In this study, a novel microfluidic system was designed and validated in achieving the synergistic effect of mechanical and chemical lysis. The consumption of cell lysis reagent is reduced by half without compromising lysis efficiency. A PDMS-based microfluidic system with a magnetically driven stirring bar enhances cell lysis through mechanical agitation. The lysed cell sample can be centrifuged into the detection chamber for observation. Experiments conducted using oral CAL-27 adenosquamous carcinoma cells showed that the mechanical shock generated in situ had a positive synergistic effect on chemical cell lysing, further optimizing traditional lysing procedures. The maximum cell lysis efficiency was improved from 88% to 94% while reducing the use of reagents. Critical parameters also enable similar lysis efficiencies at half the dosage required. This microfluidic system can enable on-site biological sample preparation for point-of-care detection, offering significant cost and time savings while ensuring high efficiency and reliability.[2025-0012]