The advent of biochips and the miniaturization of the study of biological interactions brings forth new challenges in controlling these processes on such a small scale. Already, many studies incorporate microfluidic or microelectronic platforms for confinement of the reactions of interest as well as for ease of observation and measurement. Although a logical next step, on-chip device-driven modulation of the biological components has not yet been considered. Here we present an electrically-driven device-based method for attenuation of chip-immobilized enzymatic pathway activity and biochemical signal generation.  Electronic attenuation of this pathway, which generates the bacterial signaling molecule autoinducer-2 and the electrochemically active byproduct homocysteine, is achieved through a natural redox mediator, where direct electronic control of its redox state allows for in-situ adjustable protein oxidation and activity attenuation. The biochemical products formed result in electrochemical responses and changes in cell behavior (from autoinducer-2 signaling), which in both cases are linearly dependent on the electronic input. The use of this method to controllably perturb an enzymatic pathway and control biochemical signaling on a chip could open doors for predictable interrogation and attenuation of molecular and cellular behaviors and could be especially impactful in in vitro metabolic engineering applications.

Electronic attenuation of biochemical signal generation

247th National Meeting (2014)

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