A Compact Disk-Like Centrifugal Microfluidic System for High-Throughput Nanoliter-Scale Protein Crystallization Screening

摘要

A centrifuge-based microfluidic system has been devel-noped that enables automated high-throughput and low-nvolume protein crystallizations. In this system, proteinnsolution was automatically and accurately metered andndispensed into nanoliter-sized multiple reaction cham-nbers, and it was mixed with various types of precipitantsnusing a combination of capillary effect and centrifugalnforce. It has the advantages of simple fabrication, easynoperation, and extremely low waste. To demonstrate thenfeasibility of this system, we constructed a chip containingn24 units and used it to perform lysozyme and cyannfluorescent protein (CyPet) crystallization trials. Thenresults demonstrate that high-quality crystals can bengrown and harvested from such a nanoliter-volume mi-ncrofluidic system. Compared to other microfluidic tech-nnologies for protein crystallization, this microfluidic sys-ntem allows zero waste, simple structure and convenientnoperation, which suggests that our microfluidic disk cannbe applied not only to protein crystallization, but also tonthe miniaturization of various biochemical reactions re-nquiring precise nanoscale control.