Automated nucleic acids purification from fecal samples on a microfluidic cartridge

In this paper, we describe the development of a microfluidic cartridge and its controlling device for fully automated nucleic acid purification from fecal samples. All steps of the standard complicated process, including fecal sample pretreatment, lysis, washing, and elution, were integrated into a microfluidic cartridge that could be operated with minimal hands-on time requirement. The performance of the microfluidic cartridge was evaluated using fecal samples spiked with bacteria or virus as well as fecal microbiome analysis. Microfluidic cartridge-based nucleic acid purification exhibited similar or even higher performance compared to commercialized products with respect to the concentration and purity of bacterial DNA or viral RNA. It also showed a similar or higher detection capa city for microbiome diversity in clinical fecal samples, as well as similar or higher extraction efficiency from such samples. The development of microfluidic cartridge-based fully automated platform for nucleic acid purification from fecal samples may be an important milestone towards developing a point-of-care test for rapid and simple diagnosis of gastroenteritis and gut microbiome analysis.