Reversible magnetic clamp of a microfluidic interface for the seric detection of food allergies on allergen microarrays

•Reversible magnetic clamp of a microfluidic interface on allergen microarray for serum detection of food allergies•The PDMS microfluidic cartridge is transparent above the channels allowing optical imaging in the microfluidic device while the reversibility of the magnetic clamp allows the reading of the microarray after microfluidic removal using a conventional fluorescent scanner.•No leakage was observed below 150 mBar with the magnetic clamp.•The functionality of the device was validated for in vitro diagnosis of food allergies in the serum of a patient.

To provide a robust platform for fluid handling, most microfluidic devices usually involve irreversible bonding methods to achieve a leak free interface between the microchannels and the holding substrate. Such an approach induces a major drawback when biological interactions are performed on a microarray format as it is difficult to recover the biochip for further fluorescence scanner analysis. This work describes an automated microfluidic platform using a reversible magnetic clamp for multiplexed immunodiagnostics. The microfluidic device is composed of a magnetic PDMS layer (containing iron powder) coated by PDMS, which is reversibly clamped to an epoxysilane glass slide containing an array of various antigens. The microfluidic device was validated for in vitro diagnosis of food allergies on an allergen microarray after serum interaction. The statistical analysis of spot intensities (signal to noise ratios) on the microarray displayed excellent reproducibility. In addition to the reduction of volumes provided by miniaturization, this approach is versatile, is easy-to-produce and provides an effective platform for multiplexed immunodiagnosis based on conventional fluorescent detection schemes.

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