Yuanzi Wua,
Hongwei Maa,
Dayong Gub and
Jian'an He*b
aSuzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215125, P. R. China
bInstitute of Disease Control and Prevention, Shenzhen International Travel Health Care Center, Shenzhen Entry-exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, Shenzhen, 518033, P. R. China. E-mail: hejianan6398@163.com; Fax: +86-0755-83394162; Tel: +86-0755-83391433
First published on 23rd July 2015
A quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and surface plasma resonance (SPR) are two typical solid-phase based technologies for biomolecular interaction studies. Although QCM is more affordable than SPR, the popularization of QCM as a biosensor is limited by the nonideal behavior that complicates the quantitative interpretation of frequency changes, especially the viscoelastic factor, implying that caution should be taken in interpreting QCM responses for large molecular applications. A poly(ethylene glycol) based matrix (PEG matrix) was tested on both QCM and SPR using model bait–prey pairs. Based on the dissipation monitoring technique, this matrix was found to have minimal viscoelasticity change before and after biomolecular binding. Furthermore, impedance analysis of frequency responses at multiple overtones was able to remove the viscoelastic contribution based on experimental results. Therefore, it is proved that the PEG matrix combined with the equations for impedance analysis of frequency changes at multiple overtones will facilitate the popularization of QCM as a biosensor.
A good functional matrix will greatly enhance the performance of a biosensor in that it can: (i) increase the immobilization capacity of bait molecules; (ii) better preserve the biological activity of bait molecules; (iii) lower the background by reducing nonspecific protein adsorption; (iv) especially for QCM, minimize the nonideal behavior. For example, Fawcett et al. proposed that a thin and rigid matrix could be applied to increase the immobilization capacity while causing only small viscoelastic changes upon bait–prey recognition.14 Although self-assembled monolayer (SAM) serves well for this purpose,15 previous studies have indicated that a three dimensional (3D) matrix could provide a 10-fold increase of immobilized bait molecules.16 There are a few reports on the preparation of 3D matrices for QCM as a biosensor, yet no quantitative studies were found on how the viscoelasticity change of the 3D matrices affected the frequency change.17
An impedance analyzer and the impulse excitation method (i.e., dissipation analysis) have been integrated into regular QCM to separate the contribution of viscoelasticity as well as other irrelevant factors.5,18 Recently, we have applied the impedance method to analyse the dissipation data using eqn (1) to (3):
−Δfn = An + Bn2 | (1) |
![]() | (2) |
![]() | (3) |
The fitted value A includes only the wet mass (dry materials with entrapped liquid) contribution, free of that from viscoelastic. Respectively, the fitted value B represents the viscoelasticity induced frequency change. We proposed in our previous publication19 that this analytical method was especially suitable for biological samples because it only required one sample to be measured at multiple overtones at one time. For QCM used as a biosensor, a positive A value indicates wet mass increase upon the bait–prey recognition. A positive B value indicates rigidity increase of the system (matrix + bait–prey pair), which is equivalent to wet mass (−Δfn) increase or dissipation factor decrease. Herein, we report the application of a poly(ethylene glycol) based matrix (PEG matrix) on both QCM and SPR, using model bait–prey pairs. Through the dissipation monitoring technique, this matrix was found to have minimal viscoelasticity change before and after bait–prey recognition. Furthermore, impedance analysis (eqn (1) and (2)) of frequency responses at multiple overtones was able to remove the viscoelastic contribution.
The frequency changes were then analyzed according to the impedance method (i.e., eqn (1) and (2)), results shown in Fig. 2. The fitted values of A and B were listed in Table 1. The value A was further converted to area averaged mass (Δm1) according to eqn (4), which was compared with the value calculated according to the Sauerbrey eqn (5) (Δm2).
![]() | (4) |
![]() | (5) |
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Fig. 2 The values of Δf were plotted against overtone order for SA immobilized to two biotin functionalized matrices of different density. (A) Low density matrix, (B) high density matrix. The frequency responses were fitted according to eqn (1) for overtone numbers n = 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13, (R2 ∼ 0.99). See Table 1 for fitted values of A and B. |
[SA]a | Low density | High density | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ab | Bb | Δmc | Δfd | Δm2e | Ab | Bb | Δm1c | Δfd | Δm2e | |
a Unit is μg mL−1.b Unit is Hz.c The area averaged mass calculated according to eqn (4). The unit is ng cm−2.d Average of 6 overtone numbers, Δf = Δfn/n, n = 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13. The unit is Hz, SE < 0.3.e The area averaged mass calculated in accordance with eqn (5). The unit is ng cm−2, SE < 30. Three conclusions were drawn from the above studies: first, for the tested biotin functionalized PEG matrix, viscoelasticity change induced Δf only had a minor contribution to the overall frequency change. Since fitted B values were mostly ∼0.1 for the low density biotin chips, the contribution was less than 1 Hz for n = 3. At higher overtone numbers, such as n = 13, the contribution became ∼17 Hz for B = 0.1. This 17 Hz change was still small compared with the overall 702 Hz change (∼2%, for the low density biotin chip probed with [SA] at 100 μg mL−1). No effort was made to quantitatively connect B and ΔD yet we did notice that the values of ΔD for the 8 experiments were small (0 to 10 × 10−6, Table S1†) indicating small viscoelasticity changes. | ||||||||||
100 | 52.8 | 0.1 | 950 | 54 | 964 | 95.3 | 0.8 | 1715 | 101 | 1827 |
50 | 47.8 | 0.1 | 860 | 48 | 874 | 84.6 | 0.9 | 1523 | 85 | 1539 |
20 | 33.2 | 0.1 | 598 | 34 | 615 | 80.9 | 0.6 | 1456 | 92 | 1650 |
10 | 7.5 | 0 | 135 | 7 | 130 | 11.2 | −0.3 | 202 | 9 | 157 |
QCM was sensitive to changes of affinity binding behaviors, which caused small structural differences. Since one SA could bind up to 4 biotin molecules, we believed that partial SA acted as cross linkers because the fitted B values were mostly positive: at high [SA] of over 20 μg mL−1, B values were ∼0.1 for the low density chips and 0.6–0.9 for high density chips (Table 1). However, in the case of [SA] less than 10 μg mL−1, the B value decreased to zero or negative values, indicating the binding of SA at low concentration may cause the increase in viscoelasticity of surface matrix. The A values were sensitive to the variation of [SA] for both types of chips (see ESI, Fig. S1†). Furthermore, the binding of SA to biotin caused more rigidity change for the high density matrix than the low density (i.e., ∼0.7 vs. ∼0.1 for B values), indicating the high density chip had a higher probability for SA to act as a cross-linker.
Although the values of area-averaged mass were close either according to eqn (4) or (5) (less than 10% for all 8 cases in Table 1), eqn (1) was still the most useful one, because it was able to correct the false signal caused by viscoelasticity change. For the case of high density biotin matrix probed with [SA] at 20 and 50 μg mL−1, eqn (5) gave a higher mass increase for low [SA]: 1650 ng cm−2 for [SA] at 20 μg mL−1 vs. 1539 ng cm−2 for [SA] at 50 μg mL−1, respectively. It should be noted that the mass increase values calculated by eqn (5) includes the viscoelastic contribution. After removal the viscoelastic contribution by eqn (1), one can find that the surface matrix was more rigid for [SA] at 50 μg mL−1 (B = 0.9) than that for [SA] at 20 μg mL−1 (B = 0.6). Moreover, the area-averaged mass changes from A are more physically realistic by eqn (4): 1456 ng cm−2 for [SA] at 20 μg mL−1 vs. 1523 ng cm−2 for [SA] at 50 μg mL−1, respectively (Table 1).
In summarize, one could apply eqn (1) to remove viscoelasticity induced contributions to frequency changes. More importantly, eqn (1) only required the experiments to be carried out in multiple vibration frequencies (i.e., multiple overtone numbers), not necessary using impedance or impulse excitation techniques. Experiments were conducted to demonstrate that the biotin functionalized matrix could detect multiple step recognitions: biotinylated anti-IgG (20 μg mL−1) was applied to the SA captured biotin matrix followed by PBS for a baseline, then IgG (20 μg mL−1) was passed through. We observed further frequency decrease due to the recognition between IgG and biotinylated anti-IgG (Fig. 3 and Table 2).
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Fig. 5 A typical run for affinity and kinetic rate constants determination on QCM. The procedure for bait immobilization (IgG at 50 μg mL−1) was the same as Fig. 4. Anti-IgG at a series of concentrations ((1) 1.0 μg mL−1; (2) 6.3 μg mL−1; (3) 12.5 μg mL−1; (4) 25.0 μg mL−1; (5) 50.0 μg mL−1), Gly (100 mM, pH = 2.0) and PBS were introduced in turns. The binding curves were fitted for affinity and kinetic rate constants (see Fig. 6). |
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Fig. 6 Curve fitting for affinity and kinetic constants determination. (A) The binding curves from Fig. 5 were reconstructed for clarity and fitted according eqn (6); (B) the fitted values of Z were linearly fitted, resulting in ka, kd and KA (KA = ka/kd), see Table 3 for numbers. |
[SA]a | Low density | High density | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ab | Bb | Δm1c | Δfd | Δm2e | Ab | Bb | Δm1c | Δfd | Δm2e | |
a Unit is μg mL−1.b Unit is Hz.c The area averaged mass calculated according to eqn (4). The unit is ng cm−2.d Average of 6 overtone numbers, Δf = Δfn/n, n = 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13. The unit is Hz, SE < 0.3.e The area averaged mass calculated in accordance with eqn (5). The unit is ng cm−2, SE < 30. | ||||||||||
100 | 39.2 | −0.3 | 706 | 36.5 | 658 | 38.8 | −0.4 | 698 | 35.5 | 640 |
50 | 32.9 | −0.3 | 592 | 30.3 | 545 | 34.9 | −0.5 | 629 | 30.9 | 556 |
20 | 12.1 | −0.2 | 218 | 10.6 | 190 | 27.9 | −0.5 | 502 | 23.2 | 418 |
10 | 1.2 | −0.1 | 22 | 0.8 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.2 | 4.3 |
From Table 2, the B values were all negative except a zero value, indicating that the binding of biotinylated anti-IgG caused the increase of viscoelasticity of the overall system (biotinylated PEG matrix + SA + biotinylated anti-IgG). Correspondingly, we observed all positive ΔD values (Table S1†). This was reasonable because, unlike SA, biotin could not act as a cross linker. Furthermore, from Table 1, we knew that there was more SA immobilized to the high density chip. However, we found similar values of mass changes due to the binding of biotinylated anti-IgG to both high and low density chips: ∼600 ng cm−2 and ∼700 ng cm−2 for chips probed with 50 μg mL−1 and 100 μg mL−1 [SA], respectively (Table 2). We believed this observation was due to steric hindrance that limited the number of biotinylated anti-IgG molecules (Mw ∼ 160 kDa) that could be packed in a relatively small space (i.e. the pseudo three dimensional polymer matrix). Similar trend was also found for the binding of IgG to immobilized biotinylated anti-IgG (see ESI, Table S2†).
We first examined the nonfouling property of the chips (i.e., the ability to reduce/prevent nonspecific protein adsorption) and found that the PEG matrix could reduce the nonspecific protein adsorption to the level below the detection limit of QCM and SPR (Fig. S2 and S3†). Second, we optimized conditions for the immobilization of bait molecules, the binding of prey molecules as well as the regeneration of sensor chips (Fig. S4 and S5†). The optimized condition was described in details in the Experimental section. Finally, we carried out a systematic study, using IgG and anti-IgG as the model bait–prey pair.
It was assumed that the frequency change has a linear relation to the amount of captured prey molecules. Liu et al.27 applied QCM to study the kinetics of binding. Here we applied similar equations to obtain affinity and kinetic rate constants (see ESI† for detailed equation deduction).
![]() | (6) |
Z = ka × C + kd | (7) |
Earlier data analysis confirmed that the PEG matrix tested here had negligible viscoelasticity induced frequency changes. Here we found that a kinetic simulation based on fitted A values gave similar results with a kinetic simulation directly from Δf (see Fig. S6†). The latter is much more convenient and will be applied thereafter. We also confirmed the affinity and kinetic rate constants were independent on the overtone numbers (Table S5†). Therefore, n = 3 would be used as a representative case.
The potential impact of the immobilized density of bait molecules was tested by varying the concentration of bait molecules at the immobilization step. For example, we tested IgG immobilization at 25, 50, 125, 250 μg mL−1, resulting in different densities of immobilized IgG as evident from the different value of Δf3 (Table 3). These surfaces were then probed with the same concentration series of prey molecules. It gave similar association rate constants and was in agreement with reported findings that when the prey molecule concentration was too high, affinity constants could be relatively small. The dissociation rate constant, however, varied according to the density of immobilized IgG: a 4 fold increase when the IgG concentration increased from 25 to 250 μg mL−1. Steric effect may be one of the causes for the observed concentration dependence, which should be more pronounces at high matrix concentration as it more greatly affects the penetration of the analyte protein. The same bait–prey pair was tested in a BIAcore 3000 SPR. The kinetic rate constants calculated from QCM and SPR were slightly different: SPR gave a 10 fold larger ka value and 30 fold larger kd value than QCM results. This may be explained by employment of different flow cells in QCM and SPR. As we known, BIAcore 3000 using microfluidic channel with a high flow rate. High flow rate has dual functionality: (1) to drive analyte to the chip surface, and to let them interact with immobilized antibodies, and (2) to force the dissociation of formed bonds and to detach bound analyte from surface. As a result, both association and dissociation obtained by SPR are higher than those in QCM. However, the equilibrium constant KA was similar, because the flow effect is canceled by taking a ratio between ka and kd. The results indicated that the affinity values using QCM and SPR are valid.
We further studied the potential impact of immobilization on bait–prey recognition. First, anti-IgG was immobilized as the bait molecules and tested with IgG as the prey molecule. It gave similar affinity rate constants, but kinetic rate constants were slightly different (Table S6†). This discrepancy was attributed to the difference of molecular in weight, shape and size, which resulted in different steric hindrance after the immobilization. Generally speaking, when proteins with small molecular weights were used as prey, they were able to diffuse into matrix easier, and interact with the baits.28 In another test, anti-BSA was able to bind to BSA, which was immobilized to surface as bait molecule. However, BSA was unable to bind to anti-BSA when anti-BSA was used as bait molecule (Fig. S8†). Thus, when using surface-sensitive method to detect the affinity constants, choice suitable ligand should be taken into account when designing experiment.
Footnote |
† Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c5ra05549k |
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2015 |