Dextran-silane coating chemistry for SiO2-based suspension array system

Abstract

Suspension arrays provide an efficient way to identify and quantify biopolymers (usually proteins or nucleic acid sequences) in high throughput. Among various suspension arrays, self-encoded silica particle arrays, which benefit from higher sample throughput and better material stability, are attracting increasing attention. Popular methods of attaching biomolecules to silica particle surfaces include adsorption and covalent binding viaamine-silane or aldehyde-silane chemistry. One drawback of these immobilization strategies is the relatively low binding efficiency. Herein, we present a method for increasing the binding capacity of biomolecules on silica particles by employing three-dimensional (3D) derivatized natural macromolecule (dextran) matrixes. And we demonstrate the preparation of protein arrays to substantiate the applicability of our approach. Derivatized dextran-coated particles can be easily incorporated in biopolymers and provide a versatile support for bioanalysis. This new approach with dextran-silane chemistry for biomolecule binding allows signals from immobilization and interaction to have higher signal-to-noise ratios than traditional two-dimensional (2D) methods. We believe that the proposed method could provide a perspective on the improvement of self-encoded silica particle arrays.