Chemistry Department, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge, CB3 0FF, UK.
Chemistry Department, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge, CB3 0FF, UK; Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, J. J. Thomson Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 1HE, UK.
J Mol Biol. 2018 Mar 2;430(5):565-580. doi: 10.1016/j.jmb.2017.12.015. Epub 2017 Dec 29.
Microfluidics has the potential to transform experimental approaches across the life sciences. In this review, we discuss recent advances enabled by the development and application of microfluidic approaches to protein biophysics. We focus on areas where key fundamental features of microfluidics open up new possibilities and present advantages beyond low volumes and short time-scale analysis, conventionally provided by microfluidics. We discuss the two most commonly used forms of microfluidic technology, single-phase laminar flow and multiphase microfluidics. We explore how the understanding and control of the characteristic physical features of the microfluidic regime, the integration of microfluidics with orthogonal systems and the generation of well-defined microenvironments can be used to develop novel devices and methods in protein biophysics for sample manipulation, functional and structural studies, detection and material processing.
微流控技术有可能改变生命科学领域的实验方法。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了通过开发和应用微流控方法在蛋白质生物物理学方面取得的最新进展。我们重点介绍了微流控在关键基本特征方面开辟新可能性的领域，并展示了超越传统微流控在小体积和短时间尺度分析方面的优势。我们讨论了最常用的两种微流控技术形式，单相层流和多相微流控。我们探讨了如何理解和控制微流控状态的特征物理特性，将微流控与正交系统集成以及产生明确定义的微环境，以开发蛋白质生物物理学中的新型设备和方法，用于样品处理、功能和结构研究、检测和材料处理。
