| Abstract: | The loss of skeletal muscle mass with aging (sarcopenia) reduces involuntary human activity. To elucidate a mechanism for sarcopenia, the relationship between resistance exercise and gene expression in a muscle has been evaluated. In this paper, we report the development of a microfluidic shredding chip to achieve efficient RNA extraction from microtissues of skeletal muscle. The microfluidic shredding chip was fabricated from hard material and was given high‐pressure resistance. The harder microtissue of the skeletal muscle was shredded by permeation through a micropillar array with external forces and the chemical effect of a lysis buffer. The amount of total RNA in the samples increased by twofold because of the microfluidic shredding. The working principle of the microfluidic shredding chip can be widely applied for the extraction of nucleic acids from microtissue. © 2016 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |
