posted on 2018-07-05, 14:44authored byCarlos Da Silva Granja, Niklas Sandstrom, Igor Efimov, Victor P. Ostanin, Wouter van der Wijngaart, David Klenerman, Sourav GhoshSourav Ghosh
Most transduction methods for measuring particle-surface interactions are unable to differentiate the strength of interaction and largely reliant on extensive washing to reduce the ubiquitous non-specific background. Label-based methods, in particular, are limited in wide applicability due to their inherent operational complexity. On the other hand, label-free force-spectroscopic methods that can differentiate particle-surface interaction strength are skill-demanding and time-consuming. Here, we present a label-free anharmonic (nonlinear) acoustic transduction method employing the quartz crystal resonator that reads out ligand-receptor binding based on the interaction strength. We show that while stronger specific interactions are transduced more strongly, and in linear proportionality to the ligand concentration on microparticles, non-specific interactions are significantly attenuated. This allows ligand quantification with high specificity and sensitivity in realtime under flow without separate washing steps. Constructing an analytical model of a quartz resonator, we can relate the number and type (specific vs. non-specific) of ligand-receptor interactions with the change in characteristic nonlinearity coefficient of the resonator. The entirely-electronic and microfluidic-integrable transduction method could potentially allow a simple, fast and reliable way for characterising particle-surface interactions with economy of scale.
Funding
This work was supported by EU projects RAPP-ID (FP7-JTI 115153) and Norosensor (FP7-NMP 604244), and the EPSRC Bridging the Gap in Antimicrobial Resistance grant (EP/M027341/1)
History
School
Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering
Published in
Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical
Citation
DA SILVA GRANJA, C. ...et al., 2018. Characterisation of particle-surface interactions via anharmonic acoustic transduction. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 272, pp. 175-184.
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Acceptance date
2018-05-04
Publication date
2018
Notes
This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2018.05.016