Toward a comparative study of protein crystallization in microfluidic chambers using vapor diffusion and batch techniques

Two-phase microfluidic flows

“…More importantly, microfluidic technology offers a variety of unique characteristics, such as accurate control and manipulation of individual droplet as well as on-line analysis and sorting. Therefore, microdroplets have been applied in protein expression (Preckel et al, 2002;Dittrich et al, 2005;Fitzpatrick et al, 2006;Huebner et al, 2007), enzyme assays (Huebner et al, 2008a), protein crystallization (Zheng et al, 2003(Zheng et al, , 2004a(Zheng et al, , 2004b(Zheng et al, , 2005Gerdts et al, 2006;Hansen et al, 2006;Lounaci et al, 2006;Chen et al, 2007;Lau et al, 2007;Lounaci et al, 2007), DNA assays , cell encapsulation (Choi et al, 2007;Shintaku et al, 2007) and biosensing (Ferguson et al, 2009;Kim et al, 2009). These approaches could potentially affect the research of many biological systems and will lead to new applications and technologies.…”

Photopatternable Conductive PDMS Materials for Microfabrication

“…[4] Besides its well-known superior elasticity and flexibility in mechanical applications, PDMS has become a popular choice for biological studies because of its non-toxicity to cells and high permeability to gases. [5,6] The physical and chemical properties of PDMS remain stable over a wide range of temperatures from À50 to þ200 8C, a desired attribute that differentiates it from most polymeric materials. [7] Furthermore, the surface properties of PDMS can be modified to achieve specific chemical or biological characteristics through adsorption of certain proteins or by plasma processing.…”

Microfluidic crystallization

“…Indeed, PDMS is permeable to gas and liquids such as water, even though hydrophobic, and has been extensively used as such since the 60s in the industry for pervaporation. 71 In PDMS microsystems dedicated to protein crystallization, evaporation through the PDMS can be a major disadvantage for long term storage 72 and humidity around the chip has to be controlled. 73 Furthermore, osmotic regulation across PDMS membranes has been implemented in several microsystems and the most advanced ones do combine several modules: formulation, addressing, and concentration/dissolution cycles.…”