Enhancing Biological Detection With Dendrimer-Based Immunosensors

摘要

Dendrimers are highly branched, tree-like polymers that possess precise size and shape, as well as surface groups. Among them, polyarnidoamine dendrimers are the most widely studied water-soluble/biocompatible dendritic macromolecules. Such dendrimers have been exploited for interesting applications in immunodiagnostics, magnetic resonance imaging, gene therapy, and drug delivery. This report introduces a new signal amplification strategy using dendrimers. While only one fluorescein group can be linked onto an antibody molecule, a large number of fluorophores can be attached to an antibody through a dendrimer linker molecule, thus forming a water-soluble fluorescein-dendrimer- antibody bioconjugate. Upon addition of the antigen, enhanced fluorescence signals are obtained when compared with the corresponding fluorescein-antibody analogs.