CHEMICAL AMPLIFICATION - CONTINUOUS-FLOW PCR ON A CHIP

A micromachined chemical amplifier was successfully used to perform th e polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in continuous flow at high speed. Th e device is analogous to an electronic amplifier and relies on the mov ement of sample through thermostated temperature zones on a glass micr ochip. Input and output of material (DNA) is continuous, and amplifica tion is independent of input concentration. A 20-cycle PCR amplificati on of a 176-base pair fragment from the DNA gyrase gene of Neisseria g onorrhoeae was performed at various flow rates, resulting in total rea ction times of 90 seconds to 18.7 minutes.