A micro-liter viscosity and density sensor for the rheological characterization of DNA solutions in the kilo-hertz range.

When measuring the properties of fluids from biological sources, sample volumes in the micro-liter range are often desired as higher volumes may not be available or are very expensive. Miniaturized viscosity and density sensors based on a vibrating cantilever fulfill this requirement. In this paper, the possibility of measuring viscosity and density of DNA solutions at the same time using such a sensor is shown. The sensor requires a sample volume of 10 μl. By doing a titration of a solution containing 110 bp long strands of DNA in the diluted, Newtonian regime, the intrinsic viscosity can be determined to be 0.047 ml mg(-1) using the cantilever sensor. The cantilever is also tested with solutions of 10 kbp long strands with concentrations in the semi-dilute, non-Newtonian regime. The comparably small change in resonance frequency and damping observed using these solutions at 12.5 kHz is attributed to shear thinning, which is expected when extrapolating results from other groups.