Fluorescence Polarization: Recent Bioanalytical Applications, Pitfalls, and Future Trends

Abstract

Fluorescence polarization (FP) is sensitive to changes in molecular size and, therefore, assays that make use of molecular interactions are particularly useful. FP immunoassays, which rely on antibody-antigen interactions are widely used for clinical analysis, food analysis, and environmental monitoring. Development of other FP techniques, such as receptor-ligand and peptide-ligand affinity assays, aptamer affinity assays, immobilized metal assays for phosphochemicals, assays for single nucleotide polymorphisms, and capillary electrophoresis laser-induced FP assays, have further extended the applications of FP techniques to drug discovery, protein–DNA interactions, disease diagnostics, and biochemical research. The use of microplate readers equipped with polarizing optics has led to the adoption of FP as a readout mode for high-throughput screening assays. This chapter briefly describes the basic principle of FP and summarizes some of the recent bioanalytical applications of FP. It also discusses the main advantages, limitations, and future prospects of FP assays.