Microfluidic Chip Based Microarray Analysis

Microarray chip has been widely used in many fields because of its high throughput, miniaturization and automation. But there are still some disadvantages, such as highly priced instruments, long analysis time, low sensitivity and lacking of parallel analysis ability. Microfluidic device has large specific surface area and short diffusion distance because of its micrometer scale size, which can provide faster hybridization, higher detection efficiency,better analysis performance, and lots of parallel channels can be fabricated for multiple sample analysis. In present, the combination of microfluidic chip and microarray chip has been widely reported, specific hybridization method has been developed and the advantages have been demonstrated experimentally and theoretically. This review presents the research advances of microfluidic chip based microarray analysis, mainly including the specific hybridization procedures, improvement measures and mathematical modeling of hybridization. The progress in other steps has also been introduced. In addition, the disadvantages and advantages by combining microfluidic and microarray technologies are discussed.