Inexpensive Add-on Plasmonic Patch to Enable Ultrasensitive and High-Dynamic Range Protein Microarrays

Auragent Bioscience, Llc, Saint Louis MO

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract. Detection and quantification of various proteins in biological fluids and tissues is of fundamental importance in biomedical research and clinical diagnostics because it is impossible to fully characterize complex, non-linear, biochemical systems without being able to accurately and quantitatively interrogate the component molecules. There is not a commercially available tool that allows researchers to quantitatively and simultaneously measure concentrations of target analyte proteins over concentrations that range many orders of magnitude (>6) and may fall below pg/mL. We (Auragent Bioscience) aim to commercialize a product, which we call a ?Plasmonic Patch? to address this need. The Plasmonic Patch enhances fluorescence--linked immunosorbent assays (FLISA) to achieve performance to meet the aforementioned need, and, perhaps most importantly, it can do so by simply adding it on top of existing FLISAs without changing workflows, reagents, or readers. We have already demonstrated that the Plasmonic Patch can enhance the sensitivity of existing assays in the detection of several known biomarkers by more than 300-fold. In the proposed effort, we seek to further optimize the physical composition of the Plasmonic Patch to achieve even greater fluorescence enhancement, which will result in higher sensitivity and higher dynamic range. Second, we will purchase commercially available protein microarrays to show that the performance of these assays can be enhanced by orders of magnitude by simply placing the Plasmonic Patch on top prior to readout. Ultimately, the product we are creating based on the Plasmonic Patch will substantially increase the power of existing assays, allowing biomedical researchers and clinicians to better understand the pathological basis of health and disease by allowing them to interrogate relevant component proteins at a depth and breadth that is currently impossible with existing technologies.