Imaging of protein layers with an optical microscope for the characterization of peptide microarrays

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Oleg Melnyk, oleg.melnyk@ibl.fr, Vianney Souplet, vianney.souplet@ibl.fr, and Rémi Desmet, remi.desmet@ibl.fr. UMR CNRS 8161, Institut de Biologie de Lille, 1 rue du Pr Calmette, Lille, 59021, France
Peptide microarrays have emerged as powerful tools in a variety of applications. In this context, optical techniques allowing the imaging of nanometer thick biomolecular films and thus the characterization of microarrays are of great interest. For this purpose, we used a recently disclosed wide-field optical imaging technique of surface nanostructures called Sarfus, which is based on the use of a standard optical microscope and anti-reflection substrates. We demonstrate here that this technique allows the imaging of the protein layers which result from the specific capture of antibodies by arrayed peptide probes with a spatial resolution of 0.45 µm. The relationship between the thickness of the antibody layer and peptide or antibody concentration was examined.

Souplet, V. et al. J. Pep. Science 2007, in press.