(456d) New Paradigms in Gel Electrophoresis with Non-Newtonian Fluids

The evaluation of biomolecular structure and function is critical to successfully implementing biotechnology and to authenticating biological reagents that are fundamental to health-related research. Phospholipid nanogels are promising non-Newtonian separation matrices, which are thermally responsive, with a liquid-to-gel transition at ~22 °C. This property makes it easy to load and pattern nanogels in narrow microfluidic channels or narrow-bore capillaries at low temperature. The fluids are then locked in place by raising the temperature to gel the material. Discrete zones of nangels are maintained in microscale channels to accomplish traditional gel-based separations but in a microscale format. For example, nanogels of different viscosity can be patterned to create stacking zones used in DNA sieving and then thermally erased. Nanogels have also displayed a stabilizing effect to enzymes and other proteins, which provides the means to incorporate different affinity reagents into the separation. This enables cost-effective use of nanoliter volumes of highly specific enzymes and antibodies in microscale channels to identify specific proteins as well as post translational protein modifications. A wide range of applications will be discussed to demonstrate this new approach to translate traditional gel-electrophoresis separations into a microscale format.