Design and validation of a low cost surface plasmon resonance bioanalyzer using microprocessors and a touch-screen...

An economical and high-performance bioanalyzer, with no use of laptop computer, based on the use of TSPR1k23 biosensors was systematically designed, and validated experimentally for its high performance. The analyzer is composed of a micro-flow cell, a thermoelectric cooler (TEC), a clamp, a touch-screen monitor, and an electronic control unit (ECU) incorporated with photoelectric conversion device. The micro-flow cell is made of stainless steel with high thermal conductivity, and the micro-flow system is based on PID temperature-controlled algorithm to keep the constant temperature (25 degrees C) of the liquid sample via thermal exchange with the clamp. With a peristaltic pump implemented by an injection loop flow system, the bioanalyzer allows the core sensor to be completely exposed to samples. The touch-screen monitor displays the normalized response signal values updated every 0.25s, with a typical noise level less than 5RU (response unit) within 2h. The bioanalyzer was validated using hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) as an example. Anti-HBsAg monoclonal antibody is adhered to the surface of the sensor chip by a bifunctional cross-linker with the technology of self-assembly. The duration of the HBsAg measurement only lasts 5min with a dilution factor ranging from 200 to 1200, optimized with a R-squared value 0.998. The results suggested that the bioanalyzer has higher selectivity, lower cost, expanded detection limit, and shorter measuring time as compared with the HBsAg ELISA kit, especially for low concentrations of analyte.