Fractal Dimension of Microbead Assemblies Used for Protein Detection

We use fractal analysis to calculate the protein concentration in a rotating magnetic assembly of microbeads of size 1 μm, which has optimized parameters of sedimentation, binding sites and magnetic volume. We utilize the original Forrest–Witten method, but due to the relatively small number of bead particles, which is of the order of 500, we use a large number of origins and also a large number of algorithm iterations. We find a value of the fractal dimension in the range 1.70–1.90, as a function of the thrombin concentration, which plays the role of binding the microbeads together. This is in good agreement with previous results from magnetorotation studies. The calculation of the fractal dimension using multiple points of reference can be used for any assembly with a relatively small number of particles.