A Microfluidic Approach for Screening Submicroliter Volumes against Multiple Reagents by Using Preformed Arrays of Nanoliter Plugs in a Three-Phase Liquid/Liquid/Gas Flow

摘要

Herein, we describe a simple, economical microfluidic method of screening a small volume (down to submicroliter volumes) of a solution against a large number of reagents on the nanoliter scale. The use of microfluidics to miniaturize chemical and biological screening is an important and active area of research in such diverse areas as biochemical assays, protein crystallization, and combinatorial chemistry.[1]-[7] Nanoliter aqueous plugs (droplets) transported through microchannels in an immiscible liquid have been used in a liquid/liquid flow system and allow miniaturization while eliminating dispersion,[8], [9] accelerating mixing,[10] and providing control over the surface chemistry.[11] Applications of such systems to protein crystallization,[3], [12] kinetic measurements,[10] assays,[13], [14] DNA analysis,[8] and chemical synthesis[15] have been demonstrated.