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Advancements in nanoscale fabrication allow creation of small-volume reaction containers that can facilitate the screening and characterization of enzymes. A porous, ∼19 pL volume vessel has been used in this work to carry out enzyme reactions under varying substrate concentrations. Assessment of small-molecule and green fluorescent protein diffusion from the vessels indicates that pore sizes on the order of 10 nm can be obtained, allowing capture of proteins and diffusive exchange of small molecules. Glucose oxidase and horseradish peroxidase can be contained in these structures and diffusively fed with a solution containing glucose and the fluorogenic substrate amplex red through the engineered nanoscale pore structure. Fluorescent microscopy was used to monitor the reaction, which was carried out under microfluidic control. Kinetic characteristics of the enzyme (K(m) and V(max)) were evaluated and compared with results from conventional scale reactions. These picoliter, nanoporous containers can facilitate quick determination of enzyme kinetics in microfluidic systems without the requirement of surface tethering and can be used for applications in drug discovery, clinical diagnostics, and high-throughput screening.

The reaction and diffusion of molecules across barriers and through crowded environments is integral to biological system function and to separation technologies. Ordered, microfabricated post arrays are a promising route to creating synthetic barriers with controlled chemical and physical characteristics. They can be used to create crowded environments, to mimic aspects of cellular membranes, and to serve as engineered replacements of polymer-based separation media. Here, the translational diffusion of fluorescein isothiocyante and various forms of green fluorescent protein (GFP), including "supercharged" variants, are examined in a silicon-based post array environment. The technique of fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) is combined with analytical approximations and numerical simulations to assess the relative effects of reaction and diffusion on molecular transport, respectively. FRAP experiments were conducted for 64 different cases where the molecular species, the density of the posts, and the chemical surface charge of the posts were varied. In all cases, the dense packing of the posts hindered the diffusive transport of the fluorescent species. The supercharged GFPs strongly interacted with oppositely charged surfaces. With similar molecular and surface charges, transport is primarily limited by hindered diffusion. For conventional, enhanced GFP in a positively charged surface environment, transport was limited by the coupled action of hindered diffusion and surface interaction with the posts. Quantification of the size-, space-, time-, and charge-dependent translational diffusion in the post array environments can provide insight into natural processes and guide the design and development of selective membrane systems.

Multi-scale lithography and cryogenic deep reactive ion etching techniques were used to create ensembles of nanoporous, picolitre volume, reaction vessels within a microfluidic system. The fabrication of these vessels is described and how this process can be used to tailor vessel porosity by controlling the width of slits that constitute the vessel pores is demonstrated. Control of pore size allows the containment of nucleic acids and enzymes that are the foundation of biochemical reaction systems, while allowing smaller reaction constituents to traverse the container membrane and continuously supply the reaction. In this work, a 5.4 kb DNA plasmid was retained within the reaction vessels and labeled under microfluidic control with ethidium bromide as an initial proof-of-principle. Subsequently, a coupled enzyme reaction, in which glucose oxidase (GOX) and horseradish peroxidase (HRP) were contained and fed with a substrate solution of glucose and Amplex Red to produce fluorescent resorufin, was carried out under microfluidic control and monitored using fluorescent microscopy. The fabrication techniques presented are broadly applicable and can be adapted to produce devices in which a variety of high aspect ratio, nanoporous silicon structures can be integrated within a microfluidic network. The devices shown here are amenable to being scaled in number and organized to implement more complex reaction systems for applications in sensing and actuation as well as fundamental studies of biological reaction systems.