A passive micromixer for enzymatic digestion of DNA

•A passive micromixer with zigzag geometry is fabricated using FPC technology.•The total length of the micromixer is estimated by simulation.•The micromixer is evaluated with a DNA digestion process with restriction enzymes.•Simultaneous mixing of enzymes with DNA and DNA digestion is achieved in 2.5 min.

A passive micromixer with zigzag geometry is demonstrated in this work to perform simultaneously mixing of a restriction enzyme with DNA and digestion of DNA. The total length required for complete mixing is estimated by simulation. The micromixer is fabricated from an imide-based photoimageable dry-film using flexible printed circuit technology that allows easy integration of the microdevice in more complex Lab-on-a-Chip (LoC) platforms. When heated at 37 °C, the micromixer achieves both complete mixing of the reagents and DNA digestion with restriction enzymes within 2.5 min, i.e., a time comparable to the incubation step needed in conventional digestion systems. Thus, it renders further incubation unnecessary and is proved a valuable component of LoC systems for diagnostic purposes.

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