Capillary microfluidic electrophoretic mobility shift assays: application to enzymatic assays in drug discovery

Abstract

Importance of the field: Microfluidic electrophoretic mobility shift assays are becoming increasingly popular with screening groups throughout the pharmaceutical industry due to their excellent data quality and target flexibility.

Areas covered in this review: This review summarizes our experience of the microfluidic electrophoretic mobility shift technique at Merck Serono as well as from the published literature. We assess the advantages and limitations of electrophoretic mobility shift assays in this context.

What the reader will gain: Published literature on the topic is scarce. The reader will gain an insight into the techniques and issues with the use of this technology in a pharmaceutical setting.

Take home message: This technology has reached maturity, providing reliable and robust results. Current limitations are the lower-than-desired throughput capacity for primary screening campaigns, and its current restriction to enzyme classes catalyzing a significant change in mass/charge of the substrate.

Keywords::

• electrophoretic mobility shift
• enzyme assays
• microfluidics
• screening

Acknowledgements

The authors thank T Jomotte for her help with literature search and editing the manuscript.

Notes