Dynamic Microfluidic Channels for Active Nanotransport Driven by Kinesin Motor Proteins

In this paper, we describe some of our recent studies for motor protein assays using micro/nano fabrications. We fabricated two microfluidic polymer devices that enable to study active transport of kinesins and tau protein detection, respectively. The former device eliminated diffusional transport of target molecules in a single micrometer-scale channel to evaluate only the motor’s active transport, which was dynamically formed by a pneumatic poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) membrane valve. The latter device enables to detect a microtubule associated protein (MAP), tau protein, for differentiating its isoforms and mutants. These devices will be further integrated with motor protein assays to explore their applicability in bio-inspired nanosystems.