Microfluidic chip electrophoresis has been widely employed for separation of various biochemical species owing to its advantages of low sample consumption, low cost, fast analysis, high throughput, and integration capability. In this article, we reviewed the development of four different modes of microfluidics‐based electrophoresis technologies including capillary electrophoresis, gel electrophoresis, dielectrophoresis, and field (electric) flow fractionation. Coupling detection schemes on microfluidic electrophoresis platform were also reviewed such as optical, electrochemical, and mass spectrometry method. We further discussed the innovative applications of microfluidic electrophoresis for biomacromolecules (nucleic acids and proteins), biochemical small molecules (amino acids, metabolites, ions, etc.), and bioparticles (cells and pathogens) analysis. The future direction of microfluidic chip electrophoresis was predicted.
Biomolecular phase separation is
currently emerging in both the
medical and life science fields. Meanwhile, the application of liquid–liquid
phase separation has been extended to many fields including drug discovery,
fibrous material fabrication, 3D printing, and polymer design. Although
more than 8600 proteins and other synthetic macromolecules are capable
of phase separation as recently reported, there is still a lack of
a high-throughput approach to quantitatively characterize its phase
behaviors. To meet this requirement, here, we proposed fast and high-resolution
acquisition of biomolecular phase diagrams using microfluidic chips.
Using this platform, we demonstrated the phase behavior of polyU/RRASLRRASLRRASL
in a quantitative manner. Up to 1750 concentration conditions can
be generated in 140 min. The detection limitation of our device to
capture the saturation concentration for phase separation is about
5 times lower than that of the traditional turbidity method. Thus,
our results provide a basis for the rapid acquisition of phase diagrams
with high-throughput and pave the way for its wide application.
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