Paper
One limitation in the determination of the kinetic para-
Lab on a Chip
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meters for the b-gal and RBG system is the limited solubility of
the enzyme substrate.9 Ideally, the assay should be performed
at a range of substrate concentrations both above and below
the Km of the substrate but the concentration range was
limited by the solubility of RBG.2 Since this cannot be done
due to the solubility limit of RBG, a higher uncertainty is
expected in the intercept value of the Lineweaver–Burke plot
fits, which may introduce a bias in the determination of Vmax
and ki9.
Conclusions
We present a novel system capable of extensive enzyme
kinetics and inhibition characterization in a single experiment
using picoliter droplets. This microfluidic system enables
multiplex experiments where the data is decoded using a
fluorescent barcode. The small amount of reagent used in the
experiments provides a substantial cost advantage to conven-
tional micro plate based methods. We also demonstrate the
use of a picoinjector module to deliver reagent to microfluidic
droplets and we show that the picoinjector module is both
accurate and robust. By increasing the complexity of the
barcode, this system could be used to screen a wide variety of
inhibitors and/or inhibitor concentrations in a single experi-
ment for example to measure inhibition of pharmaceutically
relevant enzymes, which constitutes the targets of almost half
of the of orally administered pharmaceuticals today.1 The
system could also be used in enzyme engineering to
conveniently screen the performance of new enzyme variants
for desired attributes for example in biofuels production
where enzymes are designed to avoid inhibition by naturally
occurring inhibitors in the feedstock. The main limitation of
the system is that a fluorescent product is required for readout
of the kinetics, which is a typical requirement for most droplet
microfluidic assays. Given that a fluorescent product is
available, the device could be used to study multiplex reaction
kinetics of just about any biochemical or chemical system in a
cost-efficient and high-throughput manner with minor mod-
ifications to the workflow.
´
14 H. N. Joensson, M. Uhlen and H. A. Svahn, Lab Chip, 2011,
11, 1305–1310.
15 J. C. Baret, O. J. Miller, V. Taly, M. Ryckelynck, A. El-Harrak,
L. Frenz, C. Rick, M. L. Samuels, J. B. Hutchison, J. J. Agresti, D.
R. Link, D. A. Weitz and A. D. Griffiths, Lab Chip, 2009, 9,
1850–1858.
16 C. Holtze, A. C. Rowat, J. J. Agresti, J. B. Hutchison, F.
E. Angile, C. H. Schmitz, S. Koster, H. Duan, K. J. Humphry,
R. A. Scanga, J. S. Johnson, D. Pisignano and D. A. Weitz, Lab
Chip, 2008, 8, 1632–1639.
17 E. Brouzes, M. Medkova, N. Savenelli, D. Marran, M. Twardowski,
J. B. Hutchison, J. M. Rothberg, D. R. Link, N. Perrimon and M.
L. Samuels, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 2009, 106, 14195–14200.
18 D. Pekin, Y. Skhiri, J. C. Baret, D. Le Corre, L. Mazutis, C. B. Salem,
F. Millot, A. El Harrak, J. B. Hutchison, J. W. Larson, D. R. Link,
P. Laurent-Puig, A. D. Griffiths and V. Taly, Lab Chip, 2011, 11,
2156–2166.
19 J. J. Agresti, E. Antipov, A. R. Abate, K. Ahn, A. C. Rowat, J.-
C. Baret, M. Marquez, A. M. Klibanov, A. D. Griffiths and D.
A. Weitz, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 2010, 107,
4004–4009.
20 H. N. Joensson, M. L. Samuels, E. R. Brouzes, M. Medkova,
´
M. Uhlen, D. R. Link and H. Andersson-Svahn, Angew.
Chem., Int. Ed., 2009, 48, 2518–2521.
Acknowledgements
21 M.-P. N. Bui, C. A. Li, K. N. Han, J. Choo, E. K. Lee and G.
H. Seong, Anal. Chem., 2011, 83, 1603–1608.
22 J. Clausell-Tormos, A. D. Griffiths and C. A. Merten, Lab
Chip, 2010, 10, 1302–1307.
23 O. J. Miller, A. E. Harrak, T. Mangeat, J.-C. Baret, L. Frenz,
B. E. Debs, E. Mayot, M. L. Samuels, E. K. Rooney, P. Dieu,
M. Galvan, D. R. Link and A. D. Griffiths, Proc. Natl. Acad.
Sci. U. S. A., 2011, 109, 378–383.
This research was supported by The Novo Nordisk Foundation
Center for Biosustainability (CFB) and the ProNova VINN
Excellence Centre for Protein Technology. We would like to
acknowledge RainDance Technologies for generously provid-
ing the surfactant used in the experiments.
24 C.-H. Chen, M. A. Miller, A. Sarkar, M. T. Beste, K. B. Isaacson, D.
A. Lauffenburger, L. G. Griffith and J. Han, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2013,
135, 1645–1648.
25 J. C. McDonald, J. R. Anderson, D. T. Chiu, H. Wu, O.
J. Schueller and G. M. Whitesides, Electrophoresis, 2000, 21,
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This journal is ß The Royal Society of Chemistry 2013