Genetic analysis in miniaturized electrophoresis systems

Abstract

As electrophoretic separation of DNA is one of the most important steps in many genetic analyses, continual advances in the development of miniaturized electrophoresis systems are critical to meet the growing need for highquality and low-cost genetic analyses. The commercialization of these miniaturized systems is having or will have significant impact on the revolutionary research in biomedical and life sciences areas. This chapter focuses on the microchip electrophoresis and its applications in genetic analyses. The recent developments in the fabrication of electrophoresis microchips, the sieving matrices, the novel micro-fabricated structures for DNA separation, and the internal wall coating chemistries are reviewed. A survey of recent progress in multiplexing and integrating steps toward a high-throughput, low-cost, and miniaturized electrophoresis system is provided. Some commercial microfluidic instruments for genetic analysis as well as their technologies are discussed and we conclude the chapter with a future perspective of the microfluidic technology in industry. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.