Aim

Insert a plasmid of interest into competent bacterial cells, in order to replicate them.

Aim

Grow a colony that have successfully been transformed with one or several plasmids in order to replicate plasmid or to express a protein.

Aim

Stock bacterial culture at -80 °C.

Aim

Retrieve amplified plasmids from a liquid culture of transformed bacteria. According to the liquid culture volume, we used the QIAfilter Plasmid Purification kit (for 25 mL culture) or the QIAprep Spin Miniprep kit (for 5 mL culture) from Qiagen.

Aim

Perform restriction enzyme digestion in order to recover linear backbones of the plasmids, extract our inserts from commercial plasmid, or check the success of a ligation.

Aim

Separate DNA fragments according to their molecular weight after an enzymatic digestion, in order to purify inserts or to analyse a plasmid.

Aim

: Extract DNA from an agar gel after an electrophoresis. We used the QIAquick Gel Extraction Kit provided by Qiagen.

Aim

Insert a DNA fragment with appropriate overlaps into a linearized plasmid. We used the In-Fusion HD Cloning Plus provided by Ozyme.

Materials

• Sylgard 184 Elastomer Kit
• Vacuum pump unit
• Stove

Protocol

According to manufacturer's instruction.

1. Mix monomer and curing agent (10:1 proportion) for 30 seconds.
2. Use a vacuum pump unit and a vacuum bell jar to extract air bubbles until the mixture is clear.
3. Pour mixture onto mold.
4. Put mixture+mold in stove at 70 degrees Celsius for 3 hours.

Materials

• Razor blade
• Biopsy puncher 4mm

Protocol

1. Cut the borders of the chip with the razor blade.
2. Extract the chip from its mold.
3. Drill input and output holes with the biopsy puncher.

Materials

• Plasma cleaner
• Distilled water
• Isopropanol
• Office duct tape
• Fume hood

Protocol

1. Take chip and the surface it needs to be bonded to into the fume hood.
2. Clean chip with duct tape and isopropanol.
3. Put the chip and the surface into the plasma cleaner.
4. Expose chip and surface 30 seconds to plasma.
5. Take the chip and the surface back in the fume hood.
6. Press the microfluidic chip against the surface.

Materials

• Poly-D-Lysine solution 1.0 mg/mL
• Laminin

Protocol

1. Pour poly-D-lysine with concentration 10 &mu g/mL into the chip.
2. Incubate over night.
3. Pour laminine with concentration 4 &mu g/mL.
4. Incubate for a few hours.

Molds were made of aluminium according to the following plans (Figure 1). Part 1 Mold's center cylinder part is detachable from the bottom to make the demolding ot PDMS easier.

Materials

• Molds
• Syringe without needle
• Platinum 24mm x 2 mm strip
• Circular 13mm diameter membrane

Protocol

1. Prepare 15g of PDMS monomer using our protocol, section 1. Replace step 5 by : Fill the syringe with PDMS. Fill part 1 mold until it's full and part 2 mold until the PDMS layer is more or less 1 cm thick.
2. Demold the chip following our protocol, section 2. Ignore step 2.
3. Put membrane and platinum strip on PDMS part 1.
4. Refer to our protocol, section 3 to bond PDMS part 2 to the PDMS part prepared in the previous step.
5. Apply a small layer of PDMS with the syringe on the contact zone of the PDMS part 2 and the platinum strip.
6. Put the chip in the stove for 3 hours.

Materials

• Oscilloscope
• Function generator
• Solderless breadboard assembly
• Electric wires with banana connectors
• Coaxial cable
• Male BCN to 2 female banana connectors converter
• BNC Splitter
• 1 kOhm resistor

Protocol

1. Reproduce the following electric circuit.





2. Set function generator on sine, no offset, 4.5 V amplitude.
3. Measure Y2 peak-to-peak amplitude and Y2's phase relative to Y1.

We were allowed to use the molds made by Institut Curie. We were not involved in the process of their fabrication. Here is a short video we made about how these molds were created.