Microfluidics is the advanced microtechnology of fluid manipulation in channels with at least one dimension in the range of 1-100 microns. Microfluidic technology offers a growing number of tools for manipulating small volumes of fluid to control chemical, biological, and physical processes relevant to separation, analysis, and detection. Currently, microfluidic devices play an important role in many biological, chemical, physical, biotechnological and engineering applications. There are numerous ways to fabricate the necessary microchannels and integrate them into microfluidic platforms. In peptidomics and proteomics, microfluidics is often used in combination with mass spectrometric (MS) analysis. This review provides an overview of using microfluidic systems for peptidomics, proteomics and cell analysis. The application of microfluidics in combination with MS detection and other novel techniques to answer clinical questions is also discussed in the context of disease diagnosis and therapy. Recent developments and applications of capillary and microchip (electro)separation methods in proteomic and peptidomic analysis are summarized. The state of the art of microchip platforms for cell sorting and single-cell analysis is also discussed. Advances in detection methods are reported, and new applications in proteomics and peptidomics, quality control of peptide and protein pharmaceuticals, analysis of proteins and peptides in biomatrices and determination of their physicochemical parameters are highlighted.
Keywords: LOC; cell sorting; microTAS; microchip electrophoresis; microfluidics; peptides; peptidomics; proteins; proteomics; single-cell analysis.