Cell Immobilization and Detection Using Surface Plasmon Resonance Biochemical Analysis System Based on Nano SiO2 Film

Abstract

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biochemical analysis system began to be developed from the detection and analysis of molecular interactions to the ligand/cell interactions, cell/cell contacts, or cellular reactions. Cells needed be immobilized on the SPR chips based on the penetration depth of surface plasma waves. However it is not easily to fix suspension cells on the bare gold chips. In this paper, an effective method has been developed to immobilize yeast cells on the SPR chip based on a nanoSiO2 film which was chemically modified. The sensitivity of the SPR chip with a nanoSiO2 film is 6×10-7 refractive index unit (RIU), which could meet different applications including cell detection. The whole procedure of cell immobilization has been measured in a lab-free and real-time mode by using our home-made SPR instrument. From the experimental results, the change of the SPR signal of the SPR chip with a modified nanoSiO2 film is 2.83 times of the bare SPR chip. That means the cell immobilization capability of the modified SiO2-coating SPR chip is much stronger than that of the bare gold SPR chip, which was also proved by using a microscope. Yeast cells can be effectively fixed on the SPR chip and their immobilization process could be monitored, which hold great potential for the immobilization, detection and further analysis of other suspension cells, such as blood cells.