Fundamentals and applications of immobilized microfluidic enzymatic reactors

OVERVIEW: Over the last decade, the utility of immobilized microfluidic enzyme reactors (IMERs) has been demonstrated in a wide variety of fields, including medical diagnostics and therapy, biosensors, organic synthesis, drug discovery and many other applications. Of particular interest to the pharmaceutical industry is the potential for high throughput experimentation afforded by these systems, with a view to combinatorial synthesis for drug discovery applications. This article will focus on the current state of IMER systems, including immobilization techniques and microchannel flow generation, with a particular emphasis on applications and future prospects in view of likely directions and market potential of this field. IMPACT: The numerous advantages of attaching enzymes to a solid support, such as reuse of a single batch of enzyme, improved stability and durability, the ability to stop the reaction rapidly by removing the product from the reaction solution and the absence of enzyme contamination of the product are some of the attractive features of such systems. There are, however, a number of issues requiring careful consideration when developing such microsystems, including, but not limited to, surface modifications and exact control of fluid behaviour in microchannels, detection limitations, increased integration, and the reusability of the chips. APPLICATIONS: IMERs have received wide, including commercial, application as diagnostic tools for point-of-care applications, and, increasingly, as analytical tools in early drug development. Furthermore, peptide mapping and proteomics have employed IMER systems extensively over the past decade and growth in these areas continues. (C) 2011 Society of Chemical Industry