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.