Lab-on-a-chip in Vitro Compartmentalization Technologies for Protein Studies

In vitro compartmentalization (IVC) is a powerful tool for studying protein–proteinreactions, due to its high capacity and the versatility of droplet technologies. IVC bridges thegap between chemistry and biology as it enables the incorporation of unnatural amino acids with modificationsinto biological systems, through protein transcription and translation reactions, in a cell-likemicrodrop environment. The quest for the ultimate chip for protein studies using IVC is the drivefor the development of various microfluidic droplet technologies to enable these unusual biochemicalreactions to occur. These techniques have been shown to generate precise microdrops with a controlledsize. Various chemical and physical phenomena have been utilized for on-chip manipulation to allowthe droplets to be generated, fused, and split. Coupled with detection techniques, droplets can besorted and selected. These capabilities allow directed protein evolution to be carried out on a microchip.With further technological development of the detection module, factors such as addressable storage,transport and interfacing technologies, could be integrated and thus provide platforms for proteinstudies with high efficiency and accuracy that conventional laboratories cannot achieve.