Micro-fluidic chip based on ZnO nanowire glass microspheres grown on surface and application
Technical Field
The invention belongs to the technical field of biochips, and relates to a glass microsphere microfluidic chip based on ZnO nanowires growing on the surface and application thereof in exosome capture.
Background
Exosomes are double-layer membrane vesicle bodies with the diameter of 30-150 nm, and are mostly secreted into various body fluids such as blood, urine, breast milk, cerebrospinal fluid and the like by cells through the processes of endocytosis, fusion and efflux. Exosomes carry a variety of bioinformatic molecules such as proteins, lipids and nucleic acids, and control the biological behavior of recipient cells by targeted delivery of these bioinformatic molecules to the recipient cells, playing an important role in intercellular information transfer. Research proves that almost all types of cells used by a human body can generate exosomes, and exosomes secreted by different cells have different components and functions, so that the exosomes are expected to become novel biomarkers for clinical disease diagnosis, disease monitoring and prognosis judgment.
In recent years, nanotechnology and microfluidic technology have gradually become the technologies with the greatest development prospects in exosome capture detection due to the advantages of controllability of the nanotechnology and the microfluidic technology, good biocompatibility, high detection flux, integration and the like. Due to its unique properties, nanomaterials have been widely used in the fields of research such as optics, electrochemistry, and biomedicine. Common one-dimensional nanostructures include carbon nanotubes, silicon nanowires, and ZnO nanowires. The ZnO as a wide bandgap semiconductor material has high length-diameter ratio, large specific surface area, good mechanical and chemical stability and abundant nanometer morphology, shows more excellent performance than bulk phase materials in the aspects of ultraviolet lasers, nanometer/gas sensors, field electron emission devices, molecular level nanometer photoelectronic devices and the like, and is widely applied to the fields of biochemical sensors and the like. Meanwhile, the surface of the ZnO nanowire is rich in various functional groups, and biomolecules with specific recognition capability can be grafted, so that the ZnO nanowire is considered to be one of the best tools for improving the capture specificity of exosomes.
The micro-fluidic chip adopts a micro-electro-mechanical processing technology similar to a semiconductor to construct a micro-channel system on the chip, the experiment and analysis processes are transferred to a chip structure consisting of a path and a small liquid-phase chamber which are mutually connected, after a biological sample and reaction liquid are loaded, a micro-mechanical pump and other methods are adopted to drive the flow of buffer liquid in the chip and form a micro-channel, and finally, the automatic and continuous reaction on the chip is realized. In recent years, the exosome capture analysis technology based on the microfluidic chip attracts attention. How to organically integrate the ZnO nanowire and the microfluidic chip and fully utilize the advantages of the ZnO nanowire and the microfluidic chip in exosome capture has become a hot point and a difficult point concerned in the medical field to realize high specificity and high-efficiency capture of exosomes in complex samples.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention provides a novel micro-fluidic chip based on ZnO nanowire glass microspheres grown on the surface and application thereof, aiming at the problems in the traditional chip exosome capture.
In order to achieve the purpose, the invention is realized by adopting the following technical scheme:
a glass microsphere micro-fluidic chip based on ZnO nanowires growing on the surface is characterized in that a glass slide glass is used as a substrate, polydimethylsiloxane is used as a main body, functional micro-channels are etched on the polydimethylsiloxane, micro-channels are constructed by means of photoetching technology, plasma etching and the like (the method is not limited to the method), a micro-mixer formed by glass microspheres is filled in the micro-channels, ZnO nanowires growing in situ by a chemical bath deposition method are arranged on the surfaces of the glass microspheres, surface antibody modification is carried out on the nanowires, and exosomes are captured specifically. The detection sample can be cell culture solution supernatant or various body fluid samples of clinical patients.
Preferably, the diameter of the glass microsphere is 540-960 mm; the glass microspheres are of a face-centered cubic structure.
Preferably, the ZnO nanowire has a length of 0.5-1um, a diameter of 50-100nm, and a length-diameter ratio of up to 20.
Preferably, the glass slide has a length of 6.5-7.6 cm, a width of 2.0-2.5 cm and a thickness of 2 mm; the polydimethylsiloxane is 3.5-4.6 cm in length and 1.0-1.5 cm in width; the overall length of the micro-channel is 1.2-1.5 cm, the widest part of the micro-channel is about 0.3-0.5cm, and the narrowest part of the micro-channel is about 0.8-1.2 mm; the diameters of the sample inlet hole and the sample outlet hole are 0.8-1.2 mm.
Preferably, the ZnO nanowire surface modified antibody is any one of CD63, CD9, CD81, TSG101 and GPC-1.
The preparation method of the glass microsphere micro-fluidic chip based on the ZnO nano wire growing on the surface comprises the following steps:
(1) preparing a glass slide and polydimethylsiloxane, and etching a sample introduction channel, a sample discharge channel and a micro-channel connected with the sample introduction channel and the sample discharge channel on the polydimethylsiloxane;
(2) performing surface silanization modification on polydimethylsiloxane, and filling glass microspheres which are closely arranged into a face-centered cubic structure into a microchannel;
(3) preparing ZnO nanowires with preferred orientation growth by using a chemical bath deposition method: a ZnO seed layer is prepared on the glass microspheres in advance by adopting a laser molecular beam epitaxy method, so that nucleation points are provided for the deposition of ZnO in the chemical bath deposition process, and the nucleation work is effectively reduced; the method comprises the following steps of utilizing a high molecular material with uniformly distributed polar groups to combine with a hexamethylenetetramine solution and a zinc salt solution to react, and enabling ZnO crystal nuclei to directionally grow ZnO nanowires with one-dimensional structures on a seed layer;
(4) the ZnO nanowires on the surface of the glass microsphere are modified with specific antibodies, and the antibodies can be specifically used for exosomes of different diseases, such as CD63, CD9, CD81, TSG101, GPC-1 and the like.
Preferably, step (3) is specifically operated as: ultrasonically cleaning glass microspheres for 2-3 times by using acetone, absolute ethyl alcohol and distilled water respectively, wherein each time is 5-10min, and then drying by using nitrogen; melting ZnO by using a laser molecular beam epitaxial deposition system, and conveying the ZnO to the surface of the glass microsphere in a plasma plume form to finish the deposition preparation of the seed layer, wherein the deposition temperature is 150-300 ℃, and the deposition time is 20-40 min;ultrasonically cleaning the seed layer with acetone, anhydrous ethanol and distilled water for 5-10min, and blow-drying with nitrogen gas; placing the prepared glass microsphere containing the seed layer in a container containing 3-5 mol/L polyethyleneimine and 0.05-1 mol/L Zn (NO)3)2And 0.05-1 mol/L of hexamethylenetetramine, incubating for 6-12 h at 85-95 ℃, cleaning, air drying and baking for 20-40min at 400 ℃ after the growth is finished, for later use;
the operation of the step (4) is as follows: immersing a chip of the glass microsphere for growing the ZnO nanowire into a 3-mercaptopropyl trimethoxy silane solution, and reacting for 1 h at room temperature; washing the excess 3-MPS with 70% ethanol for 3 times; then immersing the chip into N- (4-maleimide butyryl) succinimide solution, and reacting for 30 min at room temperature; after washing with PBS, the chip was immersed in an antibody solution of an antibody to an exosome-membrane-specific protein, reacted at room temperature for 1-2 h, and then the chip microchannel was washed with PBS at a flow rate of 1-2.5. mu.l/min using a syringe pump for 40-60 min, thereby completing antibody coating.
Preferably, the cell culture supernatant or the body fluid sample is injected into the chip for exosome capture, and then eluted with Tris-HCL buffer at a flow rate of 1-2.5. mu.l/min, and the eluate is collected.
Compared with the prior art, the invention has the advantages and positive effects that:
the invention discloses a micro-fluidic chip based on glass microspheres with ZnO nanowires grown on the surfaces, which is prepared by modifying ZnO nanowires grown in situ on the glass microspheres with exosome-specific membrane protein antibodies, capturing exosomes in samples through antigen-antibody immune recognition specificity, and systematically integrating the microspheres and the micro-fluidic chip, and has the following advantages:
1. the sample consumption is less: as the reaction is only carried out in the microchannel, and the sample is filled in the microchannel and only needs 20 mul, the dead volume of the sample generated by an external pipeline is avoided, and the sample loading amount of the sample is effectively reduced.
2. The accuracy is high: according to the invention, the glass microspheres are used for filling each micro mixer in the micro channel, and the glass microspheres have no magnetism, so that the chip overcomes the limitation that signals are interfered with each other due to agglomeration of the magnetic microspheres, and the detection accuracy is greatly improved.
3. The capture efficiency is high: according to the invention, the ZnO nanowires are grown on the surface of the glass microsphere in situ, so that the surface area of the glass microsphere is effectively increased, and the capture efficiency of exosomes is improved.
4. The expandability is high: the invention adopts the form of the microfluidic chip, so that the exosome capturing system can be integrated with the microfluidic chip for sample pretreatment and the like, and the miniaturization development of an exosome separation-detection-analysis system is promoted.
5. The operation is simple and convenient: the microfluidic chip of the invention can directly separate exosome from a sample by targeting exosome specific membrane protein such as CD9, CD63, CD81, GPC-1 and the like, and has simple and convenient operation steps and short time consumption compared with the current gold standard (ultracentrifugation method) for exosome separation.
Drawings
Fig. 1 is a diagram of an exosome-capturing microfluidic chip in substance.
Fig. 2-3 are schematic diagrams of exosome-capturing microfluidic chips.
FIG. 4 is a graph showing the particle size distribution of particles in the eluate.
FIG. 5 is a graph comparing the content of substances in the initial solution and the eluate.
FIG. 6 is a Western Blot image of the eluate.
The figures are numbered: 1 glass slide, 2 polydimethylsiloxane, 3 sample inlet holes, 4 sample outlet holes, 5 micro-channels, 6 micro-mixers and 7 glass microspheres.
Detailed Description
In order that the above objects, features and advantages of the present invention may be more clearly understood, the present invention will be further described with reference to specific embodiments. It should be noted that the embodiments and features of the embodiments of the present application may be combined with each other without conflict.
In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention, however, the present invention may be practiced in other ways than those specifically described herein, and thus the present invention is not limited to the specific embodiments of the present disclosure.
As shown in fig. 1 to 3, the microfluidic chip of the present invention is composed of three parts, including a lower glass slide 1 and an upper polydimethylsiloxane 2; a sample inlet hole 3, a sample outlet hole 4 and a micro-channel 5 connected with the sample inlet hole and the sample outlet hole are etched on the upper polydimethylsiloxane 2; the micro-channel 5 is internally provided with a micro-mixer 6, the interior of the micro-mixer is provided with a glass microsphere 7 in a face-centered cubic shape, the surface of the glass microsphere 7 is grown with ZnO nano-wires 8 in situ, and the ZnO nano-wires are decorated and modified with specific recognition molecules.
The volume of the microfluidic chip is 7.6cm 2.5cm 2mm, the length of the upper polydimethylsiloxane 2 is 4.6cm, the width of the upper polydimethylsiloxane is 1.5cm, and the diameters of the sample inlet hole 3 and the sample outlet hole 4 are 1.2 mm; the overall length of the micro-channel 5 is 1.5cm, the widest part of the micro-channel is about 0.5cm, and the narrowest part of the micro-channel is about 1.2 mm; the diameter of the glass microsphere 7 is 960 mm; the ZnO nanowire 8 has the length of 0.5-1 mu m, the diameter of 50-100nm and the length-diameter ratio of 20; the specific recognition molecule is one of antibodies which can specifically recognize the exosome membrane surface marker.
Example 1
1. The micro-fluidic chip of the glass microsphere with the ZnO nano-wire grown on the surface comprises:
the chip is composed of a glass slide glass at the lower half part and polydimethylsiloxane at the upper half part. The method specifically comprises the following steps: the length of the glass slide is 6.5cm-7.6cm, the width is 2.0cm-2.5cm, and the thickness is about 2 mm; the polydimethylsiloxane has a length of 3.5cm to 4.6cm and a width of 1.0cm to 1.5 cm.
Etching a sample inlet channel, a sample outlet channel and a micro-channel connected with the sample inlet channel and the sample outlet channel on the polydimethylsiloxane. The method specifically comprises the following steps: constructing a micro-channel by a photoetching technology and a plasma etching method (which can be but is not limited to the method), wherein the diameters of the sample inlet hole and the sample outlet hole are 0.8mm-1.2 mm; the overall length of the micro-channel is 1.2cm-1.5cm, the widest part of the micro-channel is about 0.3cm-0.5cm, and the narrowest part of the micro-channel is about 0.8mm-1.2 mm.
And thirdly, the micro-channel is filled with glass microspheres which are tightly arranged into a face-centered cubic structure to form the micro-mixer.
Fourthly, growing ZnO nanowires on the glass microspheres in situ, which specifically comprises the following steps: firstly, acetone, absolute ethyl alcohol and distilled water are adoptedUltrasonically cleaning the glass microspheres for 2-3 times, each time for 5-10min, and then blowing by using nitrogen; then melting ZnO by using a laser molecular beam epitaxial deposition system, and conveying the ZnO to the surface of the glass microsphere in the form of plasma plume to finish the deposition preparation of the seed layer (the deposition temperature is 150-300 ℃, and the deposition time is 20-40 min); finally, the seed layer is ultrasonically cleaned by acetone, absolute ethyl alcohol and distilled water for 5min to 10min respectively, and is dried by nitrogen for standby. Secondly, placing the prepared glass microsphere containing the seed layer in a solvent containing 3mol/L-5mol/L Polyethyleneimine (PEI) and 0.05mol/L-1mol/L Zn (NO3)2And 0.05mol/L-1mol/L hexamethylenetetramine, incubating for 6h-12 h at 85-95 ℃, cleaning, air drying and baking for 20min-40min at 200-400 ℃ after growth is finished, and keeping the mixture for later use.
Modifying the antibody on the ZnO nanowire, specifically: immersing a chip of the glass microsphere for growing the ZnO nanowire into a 3-mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane (3-MPS) (5 percent, absolute ethyl alcohol) solution, and reacting at room temperature for about 1 hour; washing the excess 3-MPS with 70% ethanol for 3 times; then immersing the chip in a solution of N- (4-maleimidobutyryl) succinimide (GMBS) (0.25 mg/ml, dimethyl sulfoxide) to react for about 30 min at room temperature; after washing with PBS, the chip was immersed in an antibody solution of an exosome-specific protein (20 ug/ml-100ug/ml, PBS) and reacted at room temperature for 1 h-2h, and then the chip microchannel was washed with PBS at a flow rate of 1 ul/min-2.5. mu.l/min for 40 min-60min using a syringe pump, completing antibody coating.
2. The application of the glass microsphere micro-fluidic chip based on the ZnO nano-wire grown on the surface in the exosome capture is as follows:
the method for capturing the exosome by utilizing the micro-fluidic chip for modifying the specific antibody. The method specifically comprises the following steps: the cell culture supernatant or body fluid sample is injected into the chip at a flow rate of 0.5ul/min-1 mul/min for exosome capture, then 10 mM Tris-HCl buffer (pH 8.8) is used for elution at a flow rate of 1ul/min-2.5 mul/min, and the eluate is collected.
Example 2
1. Preparing a micro-fluidic chip: and etching a sample inlet hole, a sample outlet hole and a micro-channel connected with the sample inlet hole and the sample outlet hole on the polydimethylsiloxane by utilizing a photoetching technology and a plasma etching method.
The specific process is as follows:
firstly, preparing a mold: preparing a glass slide and a silicon wafer, and manufacturing a mold (manufacturing a micro-channel) by the steps of cleaning the silicon wafer, drying, spin coating (SU-8 photoresist), spin coating, pre-drying, exposing, thick drying, developing and the like.
② dimethyl silicone polymer: uniformly mixing a curing agent (medical liquid silica gel pouring sealant RTV 615) =10:1 in mass ratio, removing bubbles in the mixture, pouring the mixture on a mold, heating and curing at 80-90 ℃ for 1 hour, and carefully stripping the mold and a cured substance without cooling to obtain the polydimethylsiloxane on the upper layer of the microfluidic chip.
And thirdly, treating polydimethylsiloxane (with the pressure of-98 Kpa in the instrument and the radio frequency power of an ultraviolet lamp of 90W for 15 s) on the upper layer of the microfluidic chip by using plasma, carrying out surface silanization modification on the polydimethylsiloxane on the upper layer of the microfluidic chip by carrying out room temperature reaction on GPTMS (5 percent, absolute ethyl alcohol) absolute ethyl alcohol solution for 1 h, filling glass microspheres which are closely arranged into a face-centered cubic structure into a microchannel, and punching sample inlet holes and sample outlet holes on an upper cover plate by using punching needles.
2. The method for growing the ZnO nanowire on the surface of the glass microsphere comprises the following steps: and growing ZnO nanowires growing perpendicular to the c axis in situ on the surfaces of the glass microspheres by using a chemical bath deposition method.
The specific process is as follows:
preparing a seed layer: firstly, ultrasonically cleaning glass microspheres for 3 times by using acetone, absolute ethyl alcohol and distilled water respectively, wherein each time is 10min, and then drying by using nitrogen; then, melting ZnO by using a laser molecular beam epitaxial deposition system, and conveying the ZnO to the surface of the glass microsphere in the form of plasma plume to finish the deposition preparation of the seed layer (the deposition temperature is 200 ℃, and the deposition time is 25 min); finally, the seed layer is ultrasonically cleaned by acetone, absolute ethyl alcohol and distilled water for 10min respectively, and is dried by nitrogen for standby.
Secondly, growing ZnO nano-wires on the glass microspheres containing the seed layers: mixing PEI solution (5 mmol/L), Zn (NO3)2The solution (0.05 mol/L) and the hexamethylenetetramine solution (0.05 mol/L) are mixed inAnd uniformly mixing in a beaker, putting the glass microspheres with the seed layer deposited in advance in the solution, incubating for 9 hours at 90 ℃, cleaning after the growth is finished, air-drying, and baking for 25min at 300 ℃ to remove organic residues on the surface of the ZnO nanowire.
3. Capture of exosomes in pancreatic cancer cell culture supernatant
The method for capturing the exosome by the microfluidic chip comprises the following specific steps:
coating BSA or modifying a specific GPC-1 antibody on a ZnO nanowire: immersing the chip of the glass microsphere for growing the ZnO nanowire into a 3-mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane (3-MPS) (5 percent, absolute ethyl alcohol) solution, reacting for about 1 hour at room temperature, and washing the redundant 3-MPS for 3 times by using 70 percent ethyl alcohol; then immersing the chip in a solution of N- (4-maleimidobutyryl) succinimide (GMBS) (0.25 mg/ml, dimethyl sulfoxide) to react for about 30 min at room temperature; after washing with PBS, the chip was immersed in a GPC-1 antibody solution (100 ug/ml, PBS) and reacted at room temperature for 2h, followed by washing the chip microchannel with PBS at a flow rate of 2.5. mu.l/min using a syringe pump for 40min to complete the GPC-1 antibody coating.
Correspondingly, a chip of the glass microsphere for growing the ZnO nanowire is immersed in a 3-mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane (3-MPS) (5 percent, absolute ethyl alcohol) solution to react for about 1 hour at room temperature, and the redundant 3-MPS is washed for 3 times by 70 percent of ethyl alcohol; then immersing the chip in a solution of N- (4-maleimidobutyryl) succinimide (GMBS) (0.25 mg/ml, dimethyl sulfoxide) to react for about 30 min at room temperature; after washing with PBS, the above chip was immersed in BSA solution (100 ug/ml, PBS) and reacted at room temperature for 2h, followed by washing the chip microchannel with PBS for 40min at a flow rate of 2.5. mu.l/min using a syringe pump, thereby completing BSA coating.
Sample exosome detection: the culture supernatant (original solution) of pancreatic cancer PANC-1 cell line was injected into the GPC-1 antibody and BSA-coated chip at a flow rate of 1. mu.l/min for exosome capture, and then eluted with 10 mM Tris-HCl buffer (pH 8.8) at a flow rate of 2.5. mu.l/min, and the eluates were collected. The nanoparticle tracking technology analyzes the exosome separation effect, the immunoblotting experiment characterizes exosomes in eluent, the nanoparticle tracking technology analyzes the number of particles in original solutions of a GPC-1 coated group and a BSA coated group and in eluent, and the capture efficiency of the chip is detected.
As can be seen from fig. 4, nanoparticle tracking analysis found that the average particle size of the particles in the eluate and their main peak were within the particle size range of the exosomes. As can be seen from FIG. 5, nanoparticle tracking analysis finds that the number of exosome particles in the eluate of the GPC-1 antibody coating group accounts for about 90% of that of the initial solution, which indicates that the exosome capture efficiency can reach 90%, while the number of exosome particles in the eluate of the BSA coating group is less than 5%, which indicates that the nonspecific capture rate of the chip is extremely low. FIG. 6 is a Western Blot image of the eluate, and the Western Blot result shows that the eluate contains the exosome-specific markers GPC-1, CD9, TSG101 and the like, and the particles separated and captured by using the chip are confirmed to be exosomes. The micro-fluidic chip comprises a glass slide, a micro-channel and polydimethylsiloxane, wherein a sample inlet channel, a sample outlet channel and the micro-channel connected with the sample inlet channel and the sample outlet channel are etched on the polydimethylsiloxane, a micro-mixer is arranged in the micro-channel and consists of glass microspheres closely arranged into a face-centered cube, ZnO nanowires are grown on the surfaces of the glass microspheres by adopting a chemical bath deposition method, and an exosome specific membrane protein antibody is further modified on the nanowires grown on the glass microspheres, so that efficient capture of exosomes in cell culture supernatants or body fluid samples is realized. The invention has simple preparation, low cost and low energy consumption, and has wide application prospect in the aspects of basic research, clinical disease diagnosis, monitoring, prognosis judgment, treatment and the like.
The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and not intended to limit the present invention in other forms, and any person skilled in the art may apply the above modifications or changes to the equivalent embodiments with equivalent changes, without departing from the technical spirit of the present invention, and any simple modification, equivalent change and change made to the above embodiments according to the technical spirit of the present invention still belong to the protection scope of the technical spirit of the present invention.