A Spring in Performance: Silica Nanosprings Boost Enzyme Immobilization in Microfluidic Channels

• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b09875
• Publication Date: 2017-09-18T17:20:48Z
• Authors: Donya Valikhani; Juan M. Bolivar; Martina Viefhues; David N. McIlroy; Elwin X. Vrouwe; Bernd Nidetzky
• Keywords: 66.0; Biotecnología; Microfluidics; 3302 Tecnología Bioquímica; Ingeniería química; Bioquímica (Química); 02 engineering and technology; Surface modificacion; Silica nanosprings; Enzymes, Immobilized; Silicon Dioxide; Química industrial; Nanostructures; Microreactor; 2302 Bioquímica; 3303 Ingeniería y Tecnología Químicas; Bioreactors; Enzyme Stability; Biocatalysis; Enzyme immobilization; 0210 nano-technology; 577.1

Enzyme microreactors are important tools of miniaturized analytics and have promising applications in continuous biomanufacturing. A fundamental problem their design is that plain microchannels without extensive static internals, or packings, offer limited exposed surface area for immobilizing the enzyme. To boost immobilization a manner broadly applicable to enzymes, we coated borosilicate with silica nanosprings attached enzyme, sucrose phosphorylase, via silica-binding module genetically fused it. We showed confocal fluorescence microscopy enzyme was able penetrate ∼70 μm-thick nanospring layer became distributed uniformly Compared surface, activity immobilized enhanced 4.5-fold upon coating further increased up 10-fold by modifying sulfonate groups. Operational stability during continuous-flow biocatalytic synthesis α-glucose 1-phosphate improved factor 11 when microreactor used. More than 85% initial conversion rate retained after 840 reactor cycles performed single loading By varying substrate flow rate, performance conveniently switched between steady states quantitative product yield (50 mM) optimum productivity (19 mM min–1) at lower 40%. Surface thus extends possibilities microchannels. It effectively boosts function microstructured otherwise solid available