Fiber-packed channel bioreactor for microfluidic protein digestion

The fabrication and performance of a fiber-packed channel bioreactor in microchip along with its application in protein analysis were reported. The feasibility and performance of the unique microfluidic bioreactor were demonstrated by the tryptic digestion of myoglobin (MYO) and BSA. The on-chip digestion was carried out at a flow rate of 2.0 microL/min and the digestion time was significantly reduced to less than 5 s. The digests were identified by MALDI-TOF MS with sequence coverages of 66% (MYO) and 40% (BSA) that were comparable to those obtained by the conventional in-solution tryptic digestion. The present fiber-based microchip bioreactor provides a promising platform for the high-throughput protein identification.