Aptamer Laden Liquid Crystals Biosensing Platform for the Detection of HIV-1 Glycoprotein-120 |
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Authors: | Amna Didar Abbasi Zakir Hussain Kun-Lin Yang |
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Institution: | 1.Department of Materials Engineering, School of Chemical and Materials Engineering (SCME), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad 44000, Pakistan;2.Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, Engineering Drive 4, Singapore 117576, Singapore; |
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Abstract: | We report a label-free and simple approach for the detection of glycoprotein-120 (gp-120) using an aptamer-based liquid crystals (LCs) biosensing platform. The LCs are supported on the surface of a modified glass slide with a suitable amount of B40t77 aptamer, allowing the LCs to be homeotropically aligned. A pronounced topological change was observed on the surface due to a specific interaction between B40t77 and gp-120, which led to the disruption of the homeotropic alignment of LCs. This results in a dark-to-bright transition observed under a polarized optical microscope. With the developed biosensing platform, it was possible to not only identify gp-120, but obtained results were analyzed quantitatively through image analysis. The detection limit of the proposed biosensing platform was investigated to be 0.2 µg/mL of gp-120. Regarding selectivity of the developed platform, no response could be detected when gp-120 was replaced by other proteins, such as bovine serum albumin (BSA), hepatitis A virus capsid protein 1 (Hep A VP1) and immunoglobulin G protein (IgG). Due to attributes such as label-free, high specificity and no need for instrumental read-out, the presented biosensing platform provides the potential to develop a working device for the quick detection of HIV-1 gp-120. |
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Keywords: | liquid crystals RNA aptamer B40t77 gp-120 DMOAP biosensor |
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