Bead-based digital microfluidic immunoassay for IL-1β detection in embryo culture medium

One of the challenges in IVF treatment is to improve the pregnancy rate of selective single embryo implantation. The concentration of IL-1β in embryo culture medium may help to predict pregnancy rate. Clinically, each embryo can only get small amount of sample size. However, the traditional immunoassay cannot detect biomarkers in such small sample sizes. Therefore, we combined immunoassay with the bead-based digital microfluidic chip. The chip has two advantages, low sample requirement and low detection limit. We established the mouse IL-1β calibration curve, confirm the Human Tubal Fluid (HTF) does not influence the test result and demonstrate that mouse IL-1β in clinical mouse embryo culture medium is positively correlate to cultured days. This device has a great potential for increasing IVF pregnancy rates.