Protein manipulating environmental

Charged solutes in electrolyte solutions that are electrokinetically driven through channels with nanoscale widths exhibit unique transport characteristics that may enable rapid and efficient separations under a variety of physiological and environmental conditions. Many biomolecules, including DNA, proteins, and peptides, are charged or can be complexed with charged surfactant molecules. Manipulating the velocity of biomolecules by variation in flow pressure or electric fields in channels of nanoscopic widths will enable efficient separations that are not possible in micro- or macroscopic channels. 

All life processes are the result of enzyme activity. In fact, life itself, whether plant or animal, involves a complex network of enzymatic reactions. An enzyme is a protein that is synthesized in a living cell. It catalyzes a thermodynamically possible reaction so that the rate of the reaction is compatible with the numerous biochemical processes essential for the growth and maintenance of a cell. The synthesis of an enzyme thus is under tight metabolic regulations and controls that can be genetically or environmentally manipulated sometimes to cause the overproduction of an enzyme by the cell. An enzyme, like chemical catalysts, in no way modifies the equilibrium constant or the free energy change of a reaction. 

While a wide range of opportunities exist, such as environmental, clinical, and trace analysis, the principal application for labs-on-a-chip is in the analysis of biological samples. The miniaturized dimensions allow extremely small sample volumes to be analyzed, and a microchip format can allow chemical reaction, mixing, sample manipulation, and multiplexing to be performed. Single-cell analysis, immunoassays, protein and peptide separations, DNA analysis and sequencing, and polymerase chain reactions have all been performed on microchip devices [48]. 

Bacterial cells have been studied for many decades and are well understood. The most common strain used for early recombinant DNA work was Escherichia coli. It is still used frequently today for laboratory studies. The common gram-positive strain is Bacillus subitilis. Other bacterial cells are studied to determine their potential to destroy environmental pollutants or to synthesize specialty chemicals. Bacteria are not extremely complex, which is advantageous from a DNA manipulation standpoint, but a challenge in terms of the organism s ability to synthesize a human protein... 

Contemporary research has tended to concentrate on the identification and function of individual proteins that play key roles in plant growth, development, and response to environmental cues. While much of this research has shifted from tobacco to the more easily manipulated model plant system Arabidopsis thaliana, tobacco continues to be the subject of considerable research due to the historical database of tobacco-specific information, its ease of genetic manipulation, and... 

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