Target capturing performance of microfluidic channel surface immobilized aptamers: the effects of spacer lengths

Aptamers have been widely used to recognize and capture their targets in sensitive detection applications, such as in detections of circulating tumor cells. In this study, we investigate the effects of different lengths of oligo-T spacers on surface tethered sgc8 aptamers and their target capturing performances. To achieve this, sgc8 aptamers were immobilized onto microfluidic channel surfaces via oligo-T spacers of different lengths, and the target capturing performances of these immobilized aptamers were studied using CCRF-CEM cells. We demonstrate that the capturing performances of the immobilized aptamers were significantly affected by steric hindrance. Our results also show that aptamers immobilized on surfaces via spacers of ten Ts demonstrated the best cell capturing performances; aptamers with either too short or too long oligo-T spacers showed reduced cell capturing performances. Therefore it can be concluded that spacer optimizations are critically important for surface tethered aptamers that are commonly used in microfluidic devices for sensitive target sensing and detections.