Shear-driven redistribution of surfactant affects enzyme activity in well-mixed femtoliter droplets

We developed a microfluidic platform for splitting well-mixed, femtoliter-volume droplets from larger water-in-oil plugs, where the sizes of the daughter droplets were not limited by channel width. These droplets were separated from mother plugs at a microfabricated T-junction, which enabled the study of how increased confinement affected enzyme kinetics in droplets 4-10 microm in diameter. Initial rates for enzyme catalysis in the mother plugs and the largest daughter drops were close to the average bulk rate, while the rates in smaller droplets decreased linearly with increasing surface to volume ratio. Rates in the smallest droplets decreased by a factor of 4 compared to the bulk rate. Traditional methods for detecting nonspecific adsorption at the water-oil interface were unable to detect evidence of enzyme adsorption, including pendant drop tensiometry, laser scanning confocal microscopy of drops containing labeled proteins in microemulsions, and epifluorescence microscopy of plugs and drops generated on-chip. We propose the slowing of enzyme reaction kinetics in the smaller droplets was the result of increased adsorption and inactivation of enzymes at the water-oil interface arising from transient interfacial shear stresses imparted on the daughter droplets as they split from the mother plugs and passed through the constricted opening of the T-junction. Such stresses are known to modulate the interfacial area and density of surfactant molecules that can passivate the interface. Bright field images of the splitting processes at the junction indicate that these stresses scaled with increasing surface to volume ratios of the droplets but were relatively insensitive to the average flow rate of plugs upstream of the junction.