A microfluidic antibody bioarray for fast detection of human interleukins in low sample volumes

Abstract

The antibody bioarray is a promising tool for the detection of proteins, which can be used as disease biomarkers. Therefore, we have developed a sandwich immunoassay-type bioarray using a microfluidic method to detect human interleukins that have diagnostic values. In the method development, we studied the effect of different factors that affect capture antibody immobilization, antibody–antigen interactions, and detection methods on the bioarray surface. The fluorescence signal obtained from different detection strategies was compared based on the signal fold-increase. This comparison showed that the use of covalent immobilization of capture antibodies, as opposed to their physical adsorption on the bioarray surface, increases the signal by 1.5 fold. Moreover, the use of protein G to achieve a better oriented immobilized capture antibody has resulted in a more than 3-fold signal enhancement.