Electrospun nanofibrous membranes: A novel solid substrate for microfluidic immunoassays for HIV

An experiment was carried out to report the use of electrospinning (ES) to produce mats of nanofibers as the solid substrate for microfluidic immunoassays to improve their sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio. The measured amount of PC granules in chloroform was dissolved at room temperature and transparent solutions were obtained. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) was used to observe the morphology of the electrospun mats. The experiments were performed on a micrometrics instrument using nitrogen gas for adsorption. The results demonstrate that the improved sensitivity of microfluidic immunoassays will potentially benefit the diagnosis of diseases whose detection is based on antigen/antibody recognition beyond HIV, such as hepatitis A/B/C, many types of venereal diseases, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and the avian flu virus. It also indicate that ESPC may be more useful than TEPC for applications in microfluidic immunoassay.