Fiber optic interferometric immunosensor based on polydimethilsiloxane (PDMS) and bioactive lipids

We demonstrate a novel and simple means to fabricate optical fiber immunosensors based on Fabry-Perot (F-P) interferometers using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) as support for bioactive lipids. The sensors are fabricated following a straightforward dip-coating method producing PDMS end-capped devices. A biosensing platform is realized by subsequent functionalization of the PDMS cap with a previously characterized bioactive lipid antigen cocktail from Mycobacterium fortuitum, used as a surrogate source of antigens for tuberculosis diagnosis. After functionalization of the PDMS, the F-P sensors were immersed in different antibody-containing sera and the registered changes in their spectral features were associated to the interactions between the active lipids and the serum antibodies. Our results show that the proposed PDMS end-capped F-P immunosensors perform well differentiating antibody-containing sera. Furthermore, they offer attractive attributes such as label-free operation, real-time detection capabilities and they are also reusable. The proposed sensors, therefore, serve as an enabling optical immunosensing technique offering excellent potential for developing novel lipidomic analytical tools.