Single nanoparticle tracking-based detection of membrane receptor-ligand interactions.

We developed a single nanoparticle tracking-based detection method for membrane-associated molecules using a paucivalent gold nanoparticle (AuNP)-modified supported lipid bilayer (SLB) platform. Here, the binding activity of membrane-associated molecules (cholera toxin binding to ganglioside GM(1) in this case) was determined by calculating the diffusion coefficients of membrane-tethered AuNPs. This nonbleaching nanoparticle-based method provides >100-fold improvement in sensitivity for the same target without optimization over the fluorophore-based method that also has photobleaching and photoblinking problems. This new detection platform and analysis method could be used for membrane-associated molecule biosensor and screening assay development.