Application of Physicochemically Modified Silicon Substrates as Reverse-Phase Protein Microarrays

Physicochemically modified silicon substrates can provide a high quality alternative to nitrocellulose-coated glass slides for use in reverse-phase protein microarrays. Enhancement of protein microarray sensitivities is an important goal, especially because molecular targets within patient tissues exist in low abundance. The ideal array substrate has a high protein binding affinity and low intrinsic background signal. Silicon, which has low intrinsic autofluorescence, is being explored as a potential microarray surface. In a previous paper ( Nijdam , A. J. ; Cheng , M. M.-C. ; Fedele , R. ; Geho , D. H. ; Herrmann , P. ; Killian , K. ; Espina , V. ; Petricoin , E. F. ; Liotta , L. A. ; Ferrari , M. Physicochemically Modified Silicon as Substrate for Protein Microarrays . Biomaterials 2007 , 28 , 550 - 558 ), it is shown that physicochemical modification of silicon substrates increases the binding of protein to silicon to a level comparable with that of nitrocellulose. Here, we apply such substrates in a reverse-phase protein microarray setting in two model systems.