Novel plastic biochips for colorimetric detection of biomolecules

We report a novel plastic biochip for the sensitive colorimetric detection of analytes of interest. This type of biochip is designed to perform bioassays in a sandwich format, i.e., employing the immobilized probe molecules to capture target and then utilizing gold nanoparticle (AuNP)-labeled reporters to screen the biorecognition events. To fabricate and implement such plastic biochips, not only have we demonstrated the probe immobilization, sensor unit formation, signal transduction and visualization on the plastic substrate, but we have also introduced new methods for imaging and analysis of them. As two proof-of-concept detection applications, plastic immunochips and DNA biochips have been fabricated and their responses to human IgG and DNA have been examined respectively. To further assess the detection sensitivity of the colorimetric-based biochip, we have compared it with an enzyme-catalyzed-based biochip and with a conventional fluorescent-based biochip. We believe the colorimetric-based plastic biochip presented herein is able to fully combine the advantage of colorimetric detection and plastic substrate, thus making it an ideal platform for point-of-care analysis and diagnostics.