title: Low-voltage origami-paper-based electrophoretic device for rapid protein separation.
abstract: We present an origami paper-based electrophoretic device (oPAD-Ep) that achieves rapid (∼5 min) separation of fluorescent molecules and proteins. Due to the innovative design, the required driving voltage is just ∼10 V, which is more than 10 times lower than that used for conventional electrophoresis. The oPAD-Ep uses multiple, thin (180 μm/layer) folded paper layers as the supporting medium for electrophoresis. This approach significantly shortens the distance between the anode and cathode, and this, in turn, accounts for the high electric field (>1 kV/m) that can be achieved even with a low applied voltage. The multilayer design of the oPAD-Ep enables convenient sample introduction by use of a slip layer as well as easy product analysis and reclamation after electrophoresis by unfolding the origami paper and cutting out desired layers. We demonstrate the use of oPAD-Ep for simple separation of proteins in bovine serum, which illustrates its potential applications for point-of-care diagnostic testing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, The University of Texas at Austin , 105 East 24th Street Stop A5300, Austin, Texas 78712-1224, United States.
authors.forename: Long
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Xiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Richard M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Crooks
mesh_terms: D004560:Electricity; D004590:Electrophoresis, Paper / Q000379:methods*; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins