Enhancement of proteolysis through the silica-gel-derived microfluidic reactor

An on-chip enzymatic reactor providing rapid protein digestion is presented. Trypsin-embedding stationary phase within the microchannel has been prepared by the sol-gel method. Such a microfluidic reactor has been used for low-level protein digestion at 16 fmol per analysis. The analytical potential of the microreactor combined with the strong cation exchange and RPLC ESI-MS/MS for the identification of real samples from the cytoplasma of the human liver tissue has been demonstrated.