4
2.3. Chip Operation
The basic operating procedure for the self-partition in the proposed chip is outlined in Fig. 3. Firstly, adopted
from our previously reported “place n play” (PnP) PDMS pump strategy [27], a piece of PDMS pump slab was
attached to the outlets of the chip, which aimed to accelerate the self-partition process of the microfluidic chip.
Meanwhile, a piece of adhesive tape covered the bottom glass slide and sealed all openings connected to the void
layer under the digital PCR array. Afterwards, the chip was placed in a vacuum desiccator and degassed at 10 kPa for
a certain period, and then sealed in air-tight packaging for ready use. After the chip was taken out from vacuum, a 20
μL of PCR premix was immediately dispensed into the inlet port of the chip using a conventional micropipette. After
all the channels and chambers were completely filled with the sample, the sealing tape covering the bottom glass slide
was peeled off and then a few drops of deionized (DI) water was loaded to fill the void layer of the chip. Meanwhile a
10:1:20 weight mixture of PDMS pre-polymer, cross-linker and silicone oil was added in the inlet port of the chip to
remove the excess sample in the channel and isolate each chamber. Once the oil phase arrived at the outlet ports, the
PnP PDMS pump slab was peeled off from the chip. Finally, all inlet/oulet ports of the chip were sealed with tape, and
the chip was transferred to a flat PCR apparatus (Mastercycler nexus flat, Eppendorf, German) for amplification
reaction.
2.4. PCR amplification
In this work, EGFR genomic DNA (gDNA) purified from lung cancer cell line H1975 was selected as DNA
template. The EGFR gDNA was extracted using a QIAprep Blood & Cell Culture DNA Medi Kit according to the
manufacturer’s protocol. To assess the performance of the proposed dPCR chip, the EGFR gDNA solution was
serially diluted to yield dilutions ranging from 10
1
to 10
4
copies/L. All DNA samples were stored at −20°C prior to
use.
The primer sequences for EGFR gene in exon 20 used in this study were as follows: forward primer,
5’-ATCTGCCTCACCTCCACC-3’, and reverse primer, 5’-CACCAGTTGAGCAGGTACTG-3’. A HEX-labeled
hydrolysis probe (5’-HEX-CCGGGAACACAAAGACAA-MGB-3’) was used to trace all the PCR products while a
FAM-labeled hydrolysis probe (5’-FAM-CTGCATGATGAGCTGC-MGB-3’) was used to trace the PCR products
with T790M mutation. The reaction mix (20 μL) consisted of 5 × BioDigital dPCR Master Mix 5 μL, forward/reverse
primers 1 μL (0.4 mM), HEX/FAM probes 1 μL (0.4 mM), RNase-free water 10 μL and a serially diluted template 1
μL. Each reaction mix was premixed off-chip before sampling.
After sampling, the dPCR chip was placed on a flat PCR apparatus for PCR reaction with a two-step PCR
thermocycling. Firstly, an initialization step of 10 min at 50°C was used to digest any potential DNA contamination.
Then, a 10 min “hot start” was performed at 95°C, to activate Taq DNA polymerase. After that, forty-five cycles of
95°C for 20 s and 60°C for 40 s were performed to amplify the target DNA. The entire PCR reaction took about 77
min (including the heating and cooling time in each thermal cycling). No template control (NTC) reactions were
performed using sterile, double-distilled water with no template in each run of dPCR, to detect the presence of
contamination. Each experiment was done at least in triplicate.
2.5 Image Acquisition and Analysis
All bright field images were acquired with an inverted microscope (NIB900, Nexcope, USA), and all
fluorescence images were acquired using a monochrome CMOS camera (Nikon DS-Qi2, Japan) mounted to a Nikon