Development of a Microfluidic NMR Device for Rapid and Quantitative Detection of Tumor Markers

Abstract

In this work, a low-field microfluidic nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) detection device was developed by fabricating a multi-layer microfluidic NMR probe. In combination with biological sensor technology based on immunomagnetic nanoparticles (IMNPs), the microfluidic NMR detection device was used to rapidly distinguish the concentration of target tumor markers. The experimental results show that the concentration of the target tumor markers can be differentiated with high sensitivity and specificity by the rate of the transverse relaxation time change ΔT₂ even with interference from other biomarkers. A good linear relationship between ΔT₂ and the concentration of the target tumor markers was also found, indicating that the microfluidic NMR device could be used for quantitative detection of tumor markers. Finally, the validity of the microfluidic NMR device for detecting target tumor markers was proved by comparison with a commercial cell counter, and the results detected by the two devices have a good consistency with a correlation coefficient of 0.996. In conclusion, the presented low-field microfluidic NMR device is a potential tool for the rapid and accurate quantitative detection of tumor markers.