Analytica Chimica Acta 632 (2009) 1–8 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Analytica Chimica Acta journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/aca Review Recent advances in immobilized enzymatic reactors and their applications in proteome analysis Junfeng Ma a,b , Lihua Zhang a,∗ , Zhen Liang a , Weibing Zhang a , Yukui Zhang a a National Chromatographic R. & A. Center, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, China b Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, China article info Article history: Received 14 July 2007 Received in revised form 26 August 2007 Accepted 28 August 2007 Available online 1 September 2007 Keywords: Immobilized enzymes Carrier Proteome Review abstract Immobilized enzymatic reactors recently have drawn much attention because of the striking advantages, such as high substrate turnover rate and ease in coupling with the separation and detection systems. Carrier materials, which have great effects on the development of the immobilized enzymatic reactors, have always being the focus of study. In this paper, the contributions, mainly in the last 5 years, on the enzymatic reactors and their applications in proteome study are reviewed, with some newly developed inorganic and organic carriers for enzyme immobilization described in details. Moreover, the hyphenation of immobilized enzymatic reactors with the separation and identification systems is also summarized. By reviewing these achievements, it could be seen that enzymatic reactors have very bright future, especially in proteome analysis. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 1 2. Inorganic carriers for enzyme immobilization ........................................................................................................ 2 2.1. Inorganic particulate materials ................................................................................................................. 2 2.2. Inorganic monolithic materials ................................................................................................................ 2 2.3. Open tubular capillary ......................................................................................................................... 4 2.4. Nanomaterials .................................................................................................................................. 4 3. Organic carriers for enzyme immobilization .......................................................................................................... 5 3.1. Organic particulate materials .................................................................................................................. 5 3.2. Organic monolithic materials .................................................................................................................. 6 3.2.1. Polyacrylamide-based monoliths .................................................................................................... 6 3.2.2. Polymethacrylate-based monoliths .................................................................................................. 6 3.2.3. Organic membrane materials ........................................................................................................ 7 4. Conclusions and perspectives ......................................................................................................................... 8 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................... 8 References ............................................................................................................................................. 8 1. Introduction Proteomics, the study of all the proteins expressed by a genome, is now one of the most appealing subjects in the post-genomic era [1,2]. Compared to the genome analysis of a certain species, the pro- teome study is rather challenging because of the relatively large ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 411 84379720; fax: +86 411 84379779. E-mail address: lihuazhang@dicp.ac.cn (L. Zhang). number, the wide dynamic range, the variety of complexes, and the continuous change with time and space. Therefore, it is not sur- prising that proteome research needs the multidisciplinary effort to confront the formidable difficulties. Obviously, in order to enable breakthroughs in proteomics, high efficient separation, high sen- sitive characterization and high throughput analysis are urgently required. Up till now, two approaches have been exploited for proteome analysis. One is the top–down strategy, which involves the separa- tion of proteins by 2D gel electrophoresis, followed by the digestion 0003-2670/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.aca.2007.08.045