Speranza Giorgio, Mele Gaetano Roberto, Favia Pietro, Pederzolli Cecilia, Potrich Cristina
Center for Sensors and Devices, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Via Sommarive 18, 38123 Trento, Italy.
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Trento, v. Sommarive 9, 38123 Trento, Italy.
Materials (Basel). 2022 Apr 3;15(7):2641. doi: 10.3390/ma15072641.
Advanced materials could bring about fundamental improvements in the evolution of innovative analytical devices, i.e., biosensors or lab-on-a-chip devices, in particular in the context of liquid biopsies. Here, plasma deposition processes were tested for the introduction of primary amines on silicon surfaces by tuning the amounts and availability of amino-charged residues. Different binary (CH/NH) and ternary (CH/NH/H and CH/NH/N) mixtures of gases were used as feeds for the plasma treatments. The obtained surfaces were fully characterized for their chemical and physical properties before their use as capture materials in a functional test. Synthetic and fluorescently conjugated microRNA-21 (miR-21) was selected as the target molecule. The capture of miR-21 increased linearly with the increase in amino nitrogen measured on surfaces. The surface showing the most promising performance was further analyzed in different conditions, i.e., varying pH and time of incubation, incubation with different microRNAs, and possible elution of captured microRNAs. The apparent pH range of primary amines present on the surfaces was around 3.5-4. Positively charged surfaces prepared via PE-CVD were, therefore, demonstrated as being suitable materials for the capture of microRNA biomarkers, paving the way for their inclusion in biomedical devices for the purification and analysis of circulating biomarkers.
先进材料可以在创新分析设备（即生物传感器或芯片实验室设备）的发展中带来根本性的改进，特别是在液体活检的背景下。在此，通过调节带氨基残基的数量和可用性，测试了等离子体沉积工艺在硅表面引入伯胺的情况。不同的二元（CH/NH）和三元（CH/NH/H和CH/NH/N）气体混合物用作等离子体处理的进料。在将获得的表面用作功能测试中的捕获材料之前，对其化学和物理性质进行了全面表征。选择合成的和荧光共轭的微小RNA-21（miR-21）作为目标分子。miR-21的捕获量随着表面上测量的氨基氮的增加而线性增加。对表现出最有前景性能的表面在不同条件下进行了进一步分析，即改变pH值和孵育时间、与不同的微小RNA孵育以及捕获的微小RNA的可能洗脱。表面上存在的伯胺的表观pH范围约为3.5-4。因此，通过等离子体增强化学气相沉积（PE-CVD）制备的带正电表面被证明是捕获微小RNA生物标志物的合适材料，为将其纳入用于循环生物标志物纯化和分析的生物医学设备铺平了道路。
