A New Biochip Applied to Examine the Ankylosing Spondylitis

In this paper, we introduce a novel real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) chip, which integrated the pretreatment of biological sample, the PCR reaction and the real-time fluorescent detection. We have built a dam in the chamber of the chip, and formed a crack underneath it to separate the white blood cell from the whole blood. After the lysis of white blood cells which was separated from the whole blood, the real-time PCR reaction was produced by the integrated micro-heaters and resistance temperature detector (RTD), and the real-time fluorescent measurement was made in the identical chamber. Compared with conventional tubular PCR analysis, this chip-based PCR analysis can obtain more accurate results with smaller amount of samples and reagents. We also used the constructed biochip for the examination of HLA-B27 related to ankylosing spondylitis and the results show that the chip is available for the accurate and rapid analysis of HLA-B27 in the whole blood.