(441h) A Microfluidic System for Fiber Fluorescence in Situ Hybridization

Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) is a technique that relies on complimentary binding between fluorescently labeled nucleic acid probes and genomic DNA for detecting specific DNA sequences. It is widely used for both fundamental biological research and medical diagnosis. Conventional FISH is performed at the level of single cells, but it is limited by low resolution due to highly compacted genome in the nuclei. Fiber FISH is an advanced FISH method based on stretching free DNA extracted from cells onto a solid surface. It possesses higher resolution, but suffers from breakage of long genomic DNA and loss of identity of DNA related to the cells. We introduce a microfluidic system able to extract genomic DNA from single cells. While the DNA can be well stretched by precise control of flow conditions, the relationship between the DNA and cells is also retained. High resolution FISH is performed on the stretched DNA in the microfluidic system for cancer diagnosis.