Automated Electroosmotic Digital Optofluidics for Rapid and Label-Free Protein Detection
Rapid protein detection is crucial for medical diagnosis, clinical trials, and drug development but often faces challenges in balancing sensitivity with multiplex detection, low reagent consumption, and a short detection time. In this work, we developed an automated and sensitive electroosmotic digital optofluidics (e-DOF) platform for rapid and label-free protein biomarker quantification in microliter blood samples. The hyperspectral computation reveals nanoscale morphology changes caused by target protein capture, eliminating multifarious enzyme-linked labeling. Electroosmosis-driven molecular circulation accelerates the immuno-hybridization, enhancing sensitivity (with a detection limit of 0.21 nM) and reducing the detection time to 15 min, compared to 2-3 h for a traditional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. In multiplex detection of hepatitis A and E IgM in 17 clinical samples, the results were completely consistent with clinical trial outcomes. This e-DOF system presents an automated, rapid, and label-free platform for multiplex detection in microliter samples, highlighting potential applications in clinical diagnosis and immunoassay research.
Authors
- Shuailong Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1004-021X)
- Huikai Xie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8393-0021)
- Tianming Xu
- Rongxin Fu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4547-2269)
- Yanfang Guan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5615-5077)
- Houxiang Hu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6520-2477)
- Yan‐Yan Song (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5150-4784)
- Jiangjiang Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9647-5101)
- Wenbo Dong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-4142-6123)
- Xiangyu Jin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9277-7583)
- Hang Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6283-9069)
- Yitong Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0728-3018)
- Tianqi Zhou
- He Ding
- Shanglin Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4568-9414)
- Yang Fan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-1290-4418)
- Yao Lu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1745-5880)
- Xuekai Liu
- Guoliang Huang
- Gong Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-6190-0988)
Institutions
- Beijing Institute of Technology (CN)
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College (CN)
- Peking Union Medical College Hospital (CN)
- Henan University of Technology (CN)
- Aerospace Center Hospital (CN)
- Institute of Microelectronics (CN)
- Zhengzhou Institute of Machinery (CN)
- Beijing Advanced Sciences and Innovation Center (CN)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nano Letters
- Published
- 2025-03-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c00270
- Citations
- 6
- Primary Topic
- Electrowetting and Microfluidic Technologies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 4.38
Funders
- China Association for Science and Technology
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Beijing Institute of Technology
- Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing
- Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation
- National Key Research and Development Program of China