Abstract

Protein digestion is a key procedure prior to mass spectrometry identification in proteome research. During the past decade, a variety of microfluidic enzymatic bioreactors have been developed for highly efficient proteolysis. This review focuses on the recent advances and the key strategies of microfluidic bioreactors for digesting and identifying proteins. The subjects covered include the fabrication of microfluidic systems, protease immobilization in microchannels, typical applications of microfluidic bioreactors in highly efficient proteolysis, and future prospects. It is expected that microfluidic bioreactors will become powerful tools in proteome research and will find wide applications in high throughput protein digestion and identification.

Keywords: Proteolysis, microfluidic bioreactor, proteomics, protease, trypsin