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Allergen microarrays on high-sensitivity silicon slides

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Abstract

We have recently introduced a silicon substrate for high-sensitivity microarrays, coated with a functional polymer named copoly(DMA-NAS-MAPS). The silicon dioxide thickness has been optimized to produce a fluorescence intensification due to the optical constructive interference between the incident and reflected lights of the fluorescent radiation. The polymeric coating efficiently suppresses aspecific interaction, making the low background a distinctive feature of these slides. Here, we used the new silicon microarray substrate for allergy diagnosis, in the detection of specific IgE in serum samples of subjects with sensitizations to inhalant allergens. We compared the performance of silicon versus glass substrates. Reproducibility data were measured. Moreover, receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted to discriminate between the allergy and no allergy status in 30 well-characterized serum samples. We found that reproducibility of the microarray on glass supports was not different from available data on allergen arrays, whereas the reproducibility on the silicon substrate was consistently better than on glass. Moreover, silicon significantly enhanced the performance of the allergen microarray as compared to glass in accurately identifying allergic patients spanning a wide range of specific IgE titers to the considered allergens.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto di Chimica del Riconoscimento Molecolare (ICRM), C.N.R., Via Mario Bianco, 9, 20131, Milan, Italy

    Marina Cretich, Francesco Damin, Marta Borghi, Laura Sola & Marcella Chiari

  2. Department of Immunology, Transplantation and Infectious Diseases, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, 20132, Milan, Italy

    Daniela Breda & Samuele E. Burastero

  3. Optical Characterization and Nanophotonics Lab, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Boston University Photonics Center, Boston, MA, 02215-2406, USA

    Selim M. Unlu

Authors
  1. Marina Cretich
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  2. Daniela Breda
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  3. Francesco Damin
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  4. Marta Borghi
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  5. Laura Sola
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  6. Selim M. Unlu
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  7. Samuele E. Burastero
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  8. Marcella Chiari
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Correspondence to Marina Cretich.

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Cretich, M., Breda, D., Damin, F. et al. Allergen microarrays on high-sensitivity silicon slides. Anal Bioanal Chem 398, 1723–1733 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-010-4077-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-010-4077-x

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