Analysis of αB-crystallin polydispersity in solution through native microfluidic electrophoresis.
Maya A WrightFrancesco Simone RuggeriKadi Liis SaarPavan K ChallaJustin L P BeneschTuomas P J KnowlesPublished in: The Analyst (2019)
In recent years, significant advancements have been made in the understanding of the population distributions and dynamic oligomeric states of the molecular chaperone αB-crystallin and its core domain variants. In this work, we provide solution-phase evidence of the polydispersity of αB-crystallin using microfluidic methods, used for separating the oligomeric species present in solution according to their different electrophoretic mobilities on-chip in a matter of seconds. We in particular demonstrate that microfluidic high-field electrophoresis and diffusion can detect the oligomerisation of these highly dynamic molecular chaperones and characterise the dominant oligomeric species present. We thereby provide a robust microfluidic method for characterising the individual species within complex protein mixtures of biological relevance.