Issue 18, 2007
From the journal:

Chemical Communications

Miniaturizing chemistry and biology in microdroplets

Bernard T. Kelly,a   Jean-Christophe Baret,b   Valerie Talyab  and  Andrew D. Griffiths*b  

* Corresponding authors

a Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Hills Road, Cambridge, UK

b Institut de Science et d'Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (ISIS), Université Louis Pasteur, CNRS UMR 7006, 8 allée Gaspard Monge, BP 70028, Strasbourg Cedex, France
E-mail: griffiths@isis.u-strasbg.fr
Fax: 003390245115
Tel: 003390245171

Abstract

By compartmentalizing reactions in aqueous microdroplets of water-in-oil emulsions, reaction volumes can be reduced by factors of up to 109 compared to conventional microtitre-plate based systems. This allows massively parallel processing of as many as 1010 reactions in a total volume of only 1 ml of emulsion. This review describes the use of emulsions for directed evolution of proteins and RNAs, and for performing polymerase chain reactions (PCRs). To illustrate these applications we describe certain specific experiments, each of which exemplifies a different facet of the technique, in some detail. These examples include directed evolution of Diels–Alderase and RNA ligase ribozymes and several classes of protein enzymes, including DNA polymerases, phosphotriesterases, β-galactosidases and thiolactonases. We also describe the application of emulsion PCR to screen for rare mutations and for new ultra-high throughput sequencing technologies. Finally, we discuss the recent development of microfluidic tools for making and manipulating microdroplets and their likely impact on the future development of the field.

Graphical abstract: Miniaturizing chemistry and biology in microdroplets

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/B616252E
Article type
Feature Article
Submitted
07 Nov 2006
Accepted
19 Jan 2007
First published
23 Feb 2007

Chem. Commun., 2007, 1773-1788

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Miniaturizing chemistry and biology in microdroplets

B. T. Kelly, J. Baret, V. Taly and A. D. Griffiths, Chem. Commun., 2007, 1773 DOI: 10.1039/B616252E

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