Recently, droplet-based microfluidic systems have been widely used in various biochemical and molecular biological assays. Since this platform technique allows manipulation of large amounts of data and also provides absolute accuracy in comparison to conventional bioanalytical approaches, over the last decade a range of basic biochemical and molecular biological operations have been transferred to drop-based microfluidic formats. In this review, we introduce recent advances and examples of droplet-based microfluidic techniques that have been applied in biochemistry and molecular biology research including genomics, proteomics and cellomics. Their advantages and weaknesses in various applications are also comprehensively discussed here. The purpose of this review is to provide a new point of view and current status in droplet-based microfluidics to biochemists and molecular biologists. We hope that this review will accelerate communications between researchers who are working in droplet-based microfluidics, biochemistry and molecular biology.
Identification and monitoring cancer‐related genetic mutation become a powerful tool for targeted therapy in recent decades and KRAS is one of the most frequently mutated oncogenes in many types of cancers. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is one of the most powerful diagnostic tools and it is widely used for monitoring infectious diseases and tumor‐related mutations. However, there are still limitations for monitoring rare mutations in complex biological samples and also for monitoring various mutations in a multiplexed manner from a single set assay. In this study, we present an integration of surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with PCR that can be used for monitoring KRAS G12D mutation and also can distinguish from similar mutations such as KRAS G13D, G12S, and G12V. With this approach, various KRAS mutations can be detected from a single set of experiment without complex procedures or microdevices.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.