Modular microfluidics for point-of-care protein purifications.
Biochemical separations are the heart of diagnostic assays and purification methods for biologics. On-chip miniaturization and modularization of separation procedures will enable the development of customized, portable devices for personalized health-care diagnostics and point-of-use production of treatments. In this report, we describe the design and fabrication of miniature ion exchange, size exclusion and affinity chromatography modules for on-chip clean-up of recombinantly-produced proteins. Our results demonstrate that these common separations techniques can be implemented in microfluidic modules with performance comparable to conventional approaches. We introduce embedded 3-D microfluidic interconnects for integrating micro-scale separation modules that can be arranged and reconfigured to suit a variety of fluidic operations or biochemical processes. We demonstrate the utility of the modular approach with a platform for the enrichment of enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) from Escherichia coli lysate through integrated affinity and size-exclusion chromatography modules.
Biological and Nanoscale Systems Group, Biosciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, PO Box 2008 MS 6445, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6445, USA. milletlj@ornl.gov.
L J
LJ
Millet
J D
JD
Lucheon
R F
RF
Standaert
S T
ST
Retterer
M J
MJ
Doktycz
D002850:Chromatography, Gel; D002852:Chromatography, Ion Exchange; D004867:Equipment Design; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems
C485184:enhanced green fluorescent protein; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins