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The Kinetics of Analyte Capture on Nanoscale Sensors

J. E. Solomon ^* and M. R. Paul 

^* Condensed Matter Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California; and Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia

Correspondence: Address reprint requests to J. E. Solomon, Tel.: 818-395-2761; E-mail: jerry{at}ieyasu.compbio.caltech.edu.

This article presents a number of kinetic analyses related to binding processes relevant to capture of target analyte species in nanoscale cantilever-type devices designed to detect small concentrations of biomolecules. The overall analyte capture efficiency is a crucial measure of the ultimate sensitivity of such devices, and a detailed kinetic analysis tells us how rapidly such measurements may be made. We have analyzed the capture kinetics under a variety of conditions, including the possibility of so-called surface-enhanced ligand capture. One of the modalities studied requires ligand capture through a cross-linking mechanism, and it was found that this mode may provide a robust and sensitive approach to biomolecular detection. For the two modalities studied, we find that detection of specific biomolecules down to concentration levels of 1 nM or less appear to be quite feasible for the device configurations studied.