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Microcantilever biosensors

  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

251 Scopus citations

Abstract

Biosensors are sensors in which biomolecular interactions are used as sensing reactions. Biomolecular interactions, when combined with a microcantilever platform, can produce an extremely powerful biosensing design. The resonance frequency of a microcantilever shifts sensitively due to mass loading from molecular interaction as in the case of any acoustic sensors. In addition, the microcantilevers also undergo bending if the molecular adsorption is confined to a single surface of a microcantilever. This cantilever bending is due to a differential surface stress caused by the forces involved in the adsorption process and is amplified by making the cantilever surfaces chemically different. Lack of specificity, the main disadvantage of the cantilevers, can be overcome by using the extremely selective biochemical reactions such as receptor-ligand, antibody-antigen, or enzyme-substrate reactions. Here we review the microcantilever technology and discuss a number of highly sensitive biochemical sensor applications based on microcantilevers.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)57-64
Number of pages8
JournalMethods
Volume37
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2005

Keywords

  • Antibody-antigen
  • Biomolecular interaction
  • Biosensor
  • DNA hybridization
  • Microcantilever
  • Restriction endonuclease
  • Sensor
  • Surface stress

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