Self-Contained, Biomolecular Motor-Driven Protein Sorting and Concentrating in an Ultrasensitive Microfluidic Chip

Abstract

We developed a molecular sorter that operates without external power or control by integrating the microtubule-based, biological motor kinesin into a microfluidic channel network to sort, transport, and concentrate molecules. In our devices, functionalized microtubules that capture analyte molecules are steered along kinesin-coated microchannel tracks toward a collector structure, concentrated, and trapped. Using fluorescent analyte molecules and nanoliter sample volumes, we demonstrated 14 fM sensitivity, even in the presence of high concentrations of other proteins.

Engineering Applications of Biomolecular Motors

“…The mass transport can be further accelerated if the shuttle is guided toward the sensor. An experimental realization of the concept of analyte capture and aggregation is shown in Figure 6 (78). A second approach is to exploit the orthogonality of active transport by molecular motors to transport via fluid flow and utilize molecular shuttles to remove captured molecules from an analyte stream (50).…”

Molecular communication: Harnessing biochemical materials to engineer biomimetic communication systems

“…In this arrangement, cargoes such as nano-or microspheres [7,14,41,40], virus particles [8], proteins [81,55,23], DNAs [16,91,80] and lipid vesicles [46] have been successfully transported. Considering that the gliding direction of MTs can be controlled by utilizing preconfigured microlithographic tracks [39,47] or by applying electric [95] and magnetic fields [48], the main challenge in this arrangement is to load/unload cargoes onto/from gliding MTs at a sender/receiver in a reversible manner.…”

Patterns of molecular motors that guide and sort filaments

“…Different strategies have been demonstrated to couple the cargoes to the molecular motors. Using motors appropriately, one can separate the components 5,6 and overcome the mixing effects of diffusion. Indeed various types of microfluidic devices internally coated with molecular motors were reported in recent years.…”