Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Stucki, Ariane
• Vallapurackal, Jaicy
• Ward, Thomas R.
• Dittrich, Petra S.

Titel

Droplet Microfluidics and Directed Evolution of Enzymes: An Intertwined Journey

Ist Teil von

• Angewandte Chemie (International ed.), 2021-11, Vol.60 (46), p.24368-24387

Auflage

International ed. in English

Ort / Verlag

Germany: Wiley Subscription Services, Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Evolution is essential to the generation of complexity and ultimately life. It relies on the propagation of the properties, traits, and characteristics that allow an organism to survive in a challenging environment. It is evolution that shaped our world over about four billion years by slow and iterative adaptation. While natural evolution based on selection is slow and gradual, directed evolution allows the fast and streamlined optimization of a phenotype under selective conditions. The potential of directed evolution for the discovery and optimization of enzymes is mostly limited by the throughput of the tools and methods available for screening. Over the past twenty years, versatile tools based on droplet microfluidics have been developed to address the need for higher throughput. In this Review, we provide a chronological overview of the intertwined development of microfluidics droplet‐based compartmentalization methods and in vivo directed evolution of enzymes. From bulk emulsification to on‐chip droplet formation and sorting, droplet microfluidics offers numerous tools for high‐throughput screening. Directed evolution has greatly benefitted from these technological advances over the last twenty years. This review article gives a chronological overview of in vivo directed evolution of enzymes facilitated by droplet microfluidics.