Silicon photonic crystal microarrays for high throughput label-free detection of lung cancer cell line lysates with sensitivity and specificity

摘要

Detection of biomolecules on microarrays based on label-free on-chip optical biosensors is very attractive since this format avoids complex chemistries caused by steric hindrance of labels. Application areas include the detection of cancers and allergens, and food-borne pathogens to name a few. We have demonstrated photonic crystal microcavity biosensors with high sensitivity down to 1pM concentrations (67pg/ml). High sensitivities were achieved by slow light engineering which reduced the radiation loss and increased the stored energy in the photonic crystal microcavity resonance mode. Resonances with high quality factor Q～26,760 in liquid ambient, coupled with larger optical mode volumes allowed enhanced interaction with the analyte biomolecules which resulted in sensitivities down to 10 cells per micro-liter to lung cancer cell lysates. The specificity of detection was ensured by multiplexed detections from multiple photonic crystal microcavities arrayed on the arms of a multimode interference power splitter. Specific binding interactions and control experiments were performed simultaneously at the same instant of time with the same 60 micro-liter sample volume. Specificity is further ensured by sandwich assay methods in the multiplexed experiment. Sandwich assay based amplification increased the sensitivity further resulting in the detection of lung cancer cell lysates down to concentrations of 2 cells per micro-liter. The miniaturization enabled by photonic crystal biosensors coupled with waveguide interconnected layout thus offers the potential of high throughput proteomics with high sensitivity and specificity.