Chapter 2 Chip Capillary Electrophoresis and Total Genetic Analysis Systems

Abstract The utilization of new sequencing techniques based on capillary array electrophoresis (CAE) has had a great impact on the progress of the Human Genome Project (HGP), and finally led to its successful completion at much lower costs than initially anticipated for the project (Collins et al. , 2003). Similarly, chip-based capillary electrophoresis, the technological extension of capillary electrophoresis (CE), is a rapidly emerging technology, which has caused revolution in analytical chemistry. In fact, there has been an explosion of interest in the development of chip-based CE ever since the initial concept “micro-total analysis systems (μ-TAS)” or “lab-on-a-chip” was introduced by Manz and Harrison (Manz et al. , 1990; Harrison et al ., 1993). With great efforts from leading scientists, this new-born technology has matured rapidly. It has several advantages over conventional methods, such as reduced analysis time, high efficiency, low sample consumption, the potential for integration and automation, disposability, portability and so on. All these features make chip-based CE an attractive technology for the next generation of CE instrumentation. For example, a binary mixture could be successfully resolved in 0.8 ms using chip-based CE separation using a field strength of 53 kV/cm, with an analysis time of several orders of magnitudes less than conventional CE (Jacobson et al. , 1998). Other groups have applied chip-based CE for separating FITC-labeled amino acids, and the plate heights obtained could be down to 0.3 μm, which demonstrated the high efficiency of this separation technology (Effenhauser et al. , 1993). More recently, a microfabricated 384-lane CAE device has been developed and used for highly parallel genetic analysis, showing great promise as a means for ultra high-throughput bioanalysis (Emrich et al ., 2002; Paegel et al. , 2003). With the maturation of these technologies, companies have initiated industrialization of chip-based CE products. Several commercial chip products are currently available, such as the 5100 Automated Lab-on-a-chip Platform from Agilent Co., Ltd., and the Labchip 90 Electrophoresis System from Caliper Co., Ltd. This chapter will give an overview of the chip-based CE technology, including microchip design, fabrication and detection, surface modification and applications.