A microchip for automated extraction of RNA from Gram-positive bacteria

A Lab-on-a-Chip for fully automated quantitative extraction of RNA from Gram-positive bacterial cells is presented. The method combines thermo-electric lysis with electrophoretic purification. The chip is capable of RNA extraction proportional to the deployed amount of cells down to 1 colony forming units (CFU). The performance of the chip is demonstrated for transfer-messenger RNA (tmRNA) from the Gram-positive bacterium Streptococcus thermophilus (S.thermophilus). The RNA extraction lasts 10.5 minutes and the RNA yield is higher than for commercially available extraction kits. The extraction is particularly efficient for low molecular weight RNAs and may find broad application in clinical diagnostics and drug discovery.