Microfluidic devices for the detection of sexually transmitted infectious agents in a urine-based matrix

This paper describes work delivered under the Innovation R&D Programme (National Measurement System, UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) to develop a microfluidic Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) platform facilitating nucleic acid-based detection of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) from a urine-based matrix. Optimisation of DNA extraction methodologies, utilising silica-based monoliths on a microfluidic device, enabled direct processing of clinically-relevant large volume samples of artificial urine in reduced time, by maximising sample loading flow rate and minimising chaotropic salts added to drive DNA binding. Extracted DNA was successfully amplified by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) demonstrating potential for process integration in LOC formats