Abstract

Low Cost Thermoplastic Microfluidic Devices to Investigate the Ribosome Biogenesis and DNA Synthesis in Yeast

Elif Gencturk, PhD Student, Bogazici University

The use of microfluidic devices made of thermoplastics instead of commonly employed silicon or glass has increased in recent years. Thermoplastics show good physical, chemical and optical characteristics, and they are durable against temperature and pressure changes. The low-cost substrates as well as fabrication methods are optimized to create microfluidic platforms, which can easily be commercialized. Consequently, cyclo-olefin polymer (COP), poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and polystyrene (PS) made microbioreactors are fabricated by hot embossing and thermo-compression bonding methods to perform the yeast culturing experiments. Our microfluidic device includes c-shaped regions to trap the cells and it was designed in such a way that two media with a single strain or two strains in a single medium can be used in one experiment. Yeast cells tagged with RFP:Nop56 and GFP:Sld7 are employed to understand the regulation of ribosome biogenesis and DNA synthesis in response to several inhibitors. Since yeast is the model organism of eukaryotes, the ultimate aim is to find a therapeutic strategy for diseases such as ataxia and cancer by using the information obtained from the experiments performed in in-house made microbioreactors having 0.14 nL trapping region.