Microfluidics Devices Integrating Microcavity Surface‐Plasmon‐Resonance Biosensors: Glucose Oxidase Binding Activity Detection

We have developed miniature (≈1 μm diameter) microcavity surface-plasmon-resonance sensors (MSPRS), integrated them with microfluidics and tested their sensitivity to refractive-index changes. We tested their biosensing capability by distinguishing the interaction of glucose oxidase (Mr 160 kDa) with its natural substrate (β-D-glucose, Mr 180 Da) from its interactions with non-specific substrates (L-glucose, D-mannose and 2-deoxy-D-glucose). We ran the identical protocol we had used with the MSPRS on a Biacore 3000 instrument using their bare gold chip. Only the MSPRS was able to detect β-D-glucose binding to glucose oxidase. Each MSPRS can detect the binding to its surface of fewer than 35,000 glucose-oxidase molecules (representing 9.6 fg or 60 zmol of protein), about 106 times fewer than classical surface-plasmon-resonance biosensors.