Abstract
A label-free sensor, based on the combination of silicon photonic bandgap (PBG) structures with immobilized molecular beacon (MB) probes, is experimentally developed. Complementary target oligonucleotides are specifically recognized through hybridization with the MB probes on the surface of the sensing structure. This combination of PBG sensing structures and MB probes demonstrates an extremely high sensitivity without the need for complex PCR-based amplification or labelling methods.
Highlights
The use of oligonucleotides, short sequence nucleic acid strands, as indicators related to different biological functions is attracting a great interest during the last years
We report the development of a planar integrated photonic sensor for labelfree oligonucleotide detection, comprising a photonic bandgap (PBG) structure biofunctionalized with molecular beacon (MB) recognition probes
Regarding the sensitivity of the MB-functionalized PBG sensing structures towards the target oligonucleotide, net shifts of the PBG edge ranging from ~520 pm to even up to ~1100 pm were obtained. These shifts represent a significant improvement in the sensitivity compared to those obtained using ring resonator based sensors, which are typically below 100 pm [35,58], and are even higher to those obtained with those sensing structures using antibody-based amplification techniques [36]. These shifts indicate a very high sensitivity of the selected PBG sensing structure towards small local refractive index variations being produced in its surface, as well as a very efficient recognition of the oligonucleotide targets by the MB probes used in the experiment
Summary
The use of oligonucleotides, short sequence nucleic acid strands, as indicators related to different biological functions is attracting a great interest during the last years. The dysregulation of some of these oligonucleotide functions are linked to several diseases, such as diabetes [14,15,16], neurodegenerative disorders [17,18,19] and cancer [20,21,22,23], making them perfect candidates to be used as clinical diagnostic and therapeutic biomarkers In this context, the development of high-throughput, sensitive, and rapid oligonucleotides detection methods has become an important topic of research for the biomedical community. We report the development of a planar integrated photonic sensor for labelfree oligonucleotide detection, comprising a photonic bandgap (PBG) structure biofunctionalized with molecular beacon (MB) recognition probes The combination of these two transduction and biorecognition elements has allowed obtaining a very high spectral sensitivity towards the detection of target oligonucleotides while keeping a sensor footprint below 100 μm
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