Innovative Microchip Surfaces for Fluorescence Spectroscopy and Affinity-MALDI Mass Spectrometry in Proteomics

The fabrication of micro-arrays for multiple purposes in the field of protein analytics (proteomics) as well as of biosensors is a principal task of technology. The aim is to integrate as many specific linking positions for molecules on a micro-structured chip surface as possible. High throughput screening of samples for analyzing the existence of possible linking partners should be possible with this kind of chip. Concerning the research of the proteome, realistic information about the function, structure and molecular interaction among proteins should be achieved. The objective of our work is to design a protein-bio-chip that is compatible with mass spectrometry and fluorescence analysis. In our approach, we separated the techniques "surface chemistry" and "micro-structuring" into two independent processes. This is firstly obtained by synthesizing specific nanoparticles with tailor-made surfaces, which will be customized to the specification of most different kinds of proteins; secondly, micro-structured monolayer-arrays of nanoparticles are generated. The affine nanoparticles are able to bind more analyte per mass due to their significantly higher specific surface. Our modu-larly composed chip makes the direct accumulation of the analyte possible. Further, the possibility to tailor the protein-binding surface in view of the fragile receptors of proteins is also provided.