Team:EPF-Lausanne/Tools/Microfluidics

From 2011.igem.org

(Difference between revisions)
(Microfluidics in synthetic biology)
(Microfluidics in synthetic biology)
Line 11: Line 11:
* Protein-DNA/RNA interactions: to determine the binding affinity of a transcription factor or to discover new regulatory proteins
* Protein-DNA/RNA interactions: to determine the binding affinity of a transcription factor or to discover new regulatory proteins
-
[[File:EPFL-MITOMI shot.png|200px|right|thumb|A single picture gives us the binding affinity of 768 protein-DNA pairs]]
+
[[File:EPFL-MITOMI shot.png|250px|right|thumb|A single picture gives us the binding affinity of 768 protein-DNA pairs]]
These techniques all share the same advantages when ported on-chip: reagent volumes are reduced, therefore minimising cost, and the tiny size of each reaction chamber allows massive parallelisation of the experiment, enabling high-throughput screening. More specifically, ''in vitro'' gene synthesis becomes affordable at this scale. Our MITOMI chip contains 768 wells, all visible in one frame, which allowed us to quantify affinity of hundreds of protein-DNA combinations in a single experiment. The small channels also allow fine control over reaction conditions. Most soluble reagents can be used, including DNA, proteins, molecule libraries, and so on - allowing much creativity in experimental design.
These techniques all share the same advantages when ported on-chip: reagent volumes are reduced, therefore minimising cost, and the tiny size of each reaction chamber allows massive parallelisation of the experiment, enabling high-throughput screening. More specifically, ''in vitro'' gene synthesis becomes affordable at this scale. Our MITOMI chip contains 768 wells, all visible in one frame, which allowed us to quantify affinity of hundreds of protein-DNA combinations in a single experiment. The small channels also allow fine control over reaction conditions. Most soluble reagents can be used, including DNA, proteins, molecule libraries, and so on - allowing much creativity in experimental design.

Revision as of 23:27, 21 September 2011