US Patent 8440392 Method of conducting a droplet based enzymatic assay

A method of conducting a droplet-based enzymatic assay is provided. The method generally makes use of a droplet actuator. A droplet comprising an enzyme of interest is provided on the droplet actuator along with a droplet comprising a substrate which is potentially modified in the presence of the enzyme. The method involves executing droplet operations on the droplet actuator to combine the droplets, thereby yielding an assay droplet, and detecting modification of the substrate by the enzyme in the assay droplet on the droplet actuator. The enzyme of interest may, for example, be a potentially mutated or improperly folded enzyme exhibiting altered enzyme activity as compared to a corresponding normal enzyme.