Cell trapping, DNA extraction and Molecular Combing in a microfluidic device for high throughput genetic analysis of human DNA

We report on an integrated microfluidic device for cell trapping, DNA extraction and Molecular Combing which can be used for genetic analysis of human DNA. Our results show that it is possible to isolate and linearize the genetic material of a few cells without introducing any manipulation step of DNA molecules, thus increasing dramatically the size of the events that can be studied on the genome. Such extraction strategy is simple and fast, providing a new possibility of high throughput single-cell DNA analysis which should be applicable to cancer research, genome mapping, and genotoxicity studies.