Abstract
Magnetic biosensors have emerged as a sensitive and versatile platform for high performance medical diagnostics. These magnetic biosensors require well-tailored magnetic particles as detection probes, which need to give rise to a large and specific biological signal while showing very low nonspecific binding. This is especially important in wash-free bioassay protocols, which do not require removal of particles before measurement, often a necessity in point of care diagnostics. Here we show that magnetic interactions between magnetic particles and magnetized sensors dramatically impact particle transport and magnetic adhesion to the sensor surfaces. We investigate the dynamics of magnetic particles' biomolecular binding and magnetic adhesion to the sensor surface using microfluidic experiments. We elucidate how flow forces can inhibit magnetic adhesion, greatly diminishing or even eliminating nonspecific signals in wash-free magnetic bioassays, and enhancing signal to noise ratios by several orders of magnitude. Our method is useful for selecting and optimizing magnetic particles for a wide range of magnetic sensor platforms.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 11693 |
| Journal | Scientific Reports |
| Volume | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 30 Jun 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by Physical Science Oncology Center (U54CA143907), Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (U54CA151459), and BioSTAR through the Stanford Bio-X program. DJBB acknowledges a Stanford Bio-X Graduate Fellowship. SEM images were acquired at the Stanford Nano Shared Facilities. Microfluidic chips were fabricated at the Stanford Microfluidic Foundry. The authors would like to thank Stephanie Cone for troubleshooting microfluidic chips and Junyi Wang for generating calibration data of GMR sensors.