Vitro evolution in microfluidic systems
AssigneesUnited Kingdom Research and Innovation, President and Fellows of Harvard College
InventorsAndrew David Griffiths, David A. Weitz, Darren Roy Link, Keunho Ahn, Jerome Bibette
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Abstract
The invention describes a method for isolating one or more genetic elements encoding a gene product having a desired activity, comprising the steps of: (a) compartmentalising genetic elements into microcapsules; and (b) sorting the genetic elements which express the gene product having the desired activity; wherein at least one step is under microfluidic control. The invention enables the in vitro evolution of nucleic acids and proteins by repeated mutagenesis and iterative applications of the method of the invention.
Claims17
A method for analyzing compounds, the method comprising:
- forming a plurality of aqueous microcapsules under microfluidic control in oil, wherein each aqueous microcapsule comprises a genetic element and a cell;
- incubating the plurality of aqueous microcapsules to cause the genetic element to interact with a molecule associated with the cell;
- conducting an enzymatic reaction involving the molecule associated with the cell in the presence of the genetic element or a product encoded by the genetic element within one or more of the aqueous microcapsules to produce reaction products corresponding to individual gene products or genetic elements;
- without first sorting the aqueous microcapsules, breaking the plurality of aqueous microcapsules to pool the contents of the plurality of microcapsules comprising reaction products in a common compartment;
- and
- analyzing the individual genetic elements identified based on detection of a selectable change caused by the reaction products in one or more of the aqueous microcapsules.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.