Applying isotachophoresis for transporting, contacting, and separating proteins, DNA, and particles

该提案的总体目标是探索微通道等速电泳（ITP）的新应用领域。在这方面，将采取两种不同的办法。一方面，应该研究在ITP的帮助下产生的离子表面活性剂的陡峭梯度可以被利用来分离小颗粒，特别是纳米颗粒。ITP界面处的颗粒在这样的浓度梯度中应经受表面力。除此之外，离子型表面活性剂的浓度也会影响颗粒的电泳迁移率，在ITP界面前后产生不同的值。小颗粒与ITP界面表现出陡峭的浓度梯度的离子表面活性剂的相互作用将研究基于荧光显微镜。另一方面，计划研究与ITP区集中的蛋白质的酶反应。由于与标准方案相比，蛋白质浓度可以增加许多数量级，因此可以推测酶促反应可以显著加速。除此之外，由于所需的酶和底物的量非常小，因此相应的方案应该理想地适用于高通量筛选领域的应用。

The overarching goal of the proposal is to explore novel application areas for microchannel isotachophoresis (ITP). In that context, two different approaches will be followed. On the one hand it should be studied how far steep gradients of ionic surfactants that are created with the help of ITP may be exploited to separate small particles, especially nanoparticles. Particles at an ITP interface should experience surface forces in such concentration gradients. In addition to that, the concentration of an ionic surfactant should also influence the electrophoretic mobility of a particle, yielding different values in front of and behind the ITP interface. The interaction of small particles with ITP interfaces exhibiting a steep concentration gradient of an ionic surfactant will be studied based on fluorescence microscopy. On the other hand, it is planned to study enzymatic reactions with proteins concentrated in ITP zones. Since that way the protein concentration can be increased by many orders of magnitude compared to standard protocols, it can be speculated that enzymatic reactions can be speeded up significantly. In addition to that, since the required amounts of enzyme and substrate are very small, corresponding protocols should be ideally suited for applications in the field of high-throughput screening.