Self-Assembled Inkjet Printer for Droplet Digital Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification

Developing rapid and inexpensive diagnostic tools for molecular detection has been pushed forward by the advancements of technical aspects. However, attention has rarely been paid to the molecular detection methodology using inkjet printing technique. Herein, we developed an approach that employed a self-assembled inkjet printer as the enabling technology to realize droplet digital loop-mediated isothermal amplification in a low-cost and practical format. An inkjet printer is a self-assembled tool for the generation of discrete droplets in controllable volumes from a picoliter to a nanoliter. A microfluidic chip serves as a droplets reservoir to perform droplet digital LAMP assays. The inkjet printer approach successfully quantified the HPV16 from CaSki cells. This self-assembled and practical inkjet printer device may therefore become a promising tool for rapid molecular detection and can be extended to on-site analysis.

Automated summary

This study developed a method for molecular detection using a self-assembled inkjet printer. By generating discrete droplets, the inkjet printer enabled low-cost and practical droplet digital loop-mediated isothermal amplification. The results showed that this method successfully quantified HPV16.