Facile Preparation of Complex Protein Architectures with Sub-100-nm Resolution on Surfaces

Chemical strategies for generating protein biochips

Protein biochips are at the heart of many medical and bioanalytical applications. Increasing interest has been focused on surface activation and subsequent functionalization strategies for immobilizing these biomolecules. Different approaches using covalent and noncovalent chemistry are reviewed; particular emphasis is placed on the chemical specificity of protein attachment and on retention of protein function. Strategies for creating protein patterns (as opposed to protein arrays) are also outlined. An outlook on promising and challenging future directions for protein biochip research and applications is also offered.

Contact electrochemical replication of hydrophilic-hydrophobic monolayer patterns

Contact electrochemical replication (CER) is a novel pattern replication methodology advanced in this laboratory that offers the unprecedented capability of direct one-step reproduction of monolayer surface patterns consisting of hydrophilic domains surrounded by a hydrophobic monolayer background (hydrophilic @ hydrophobic monolayer patterns), regardless of how the initial "master" pattern was created. CER is based on the direct electrochemical transfer of information, through aqueous electrolyte bridges acting as an information transfer medium, between two organosilane monolayers self-assembled on smooth silicon wafer surfaces. Upon the application of an appropriate voltage bias between a patterned monolayer/silicon specimen playing the role of "stamp" and a monolayer/silicon specimen playing the role of "target", the hydrophilic features of the stamp are copied onto the hydrophobic surface of the target. It is shown that this electrochemical printing process may be implemented under a variety of experimental configurations conducive to the formation of nanometric electrolyte bridges between stamp and target; however, using plain liquid water for this purpose is, in general, not satisfactory because of the high surface tension, volatility, and incompressibility of water. High-fidelity replication of monolayer patterns with variable size of hydrophilic features was achieved by replacing water with a sponge-like hydrogel that is nonvolatile, compressible, and binds specifically to the hydrophilic features of such patterns. Since any copy resulting from the CER process can equally perform as stamp in a subsequent CER step, this methodology offers the rather unique option of multiple parallel reproduction of an initially fabricated master pattern.