Biomolecular interactions and tools for their recognition: focus on the quartz crystal microbalance and its diverse surface chemistries and applications

Abstract

Interactions between molecules are ubiquitous and occur in our bodies, the food we eat, the air we breathe, and myriad additional contexts. Although numerous tools are available for the recognition of biomolecular interactions, such tools are often limited in their sensitivity, expensive, and difficult to modify for various uses. In contrast, the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) has sub-nanogram detection capabilities, is label-free, is inexpensive to create, and can be readily modified with a number of diverse surface chemistries to detect and characterize diverse interactions. To maximize the versatility of the QCM, scientists need to know available methods by which QCM surfaces can be modified. Therefore, in addition to summarizing the various tools currently used for biomolecular recognition, explicating the fundamental principles of the QCM as a tool for biomolecular recognition, and comparing the QCM with other acoustic sensors, we systematically review the numerous types of surface chemistries-including hydrophobic bonds, ionic bonds, hydrogen bonds, self-assembled monolayers, plasma-polymerized films, photochemistry, and sensing ionic liquids-used to functionalize QCMs for various purposes. We also review the QCM's diverse applications, which include the detection of gaseous species, detection of carbohydrates, detection of nucleic acids, detection of non-enzymatic proteins, characterization of enzymatic activity, detection of antigens and antibodies, detection of cells, and detection of drugs. Finally, we discuss the ultimate goals of and potential barriers to the development of future QCMs.

MicroRNA-mediated signal amplification coupled with GNP/dendrimers on a mass-sensitive biosensor and its applications in intracellular microRNA quantification

“…Besides, its low cost, real time output, and label-free entities also attracted researchers' interests (Cheng et al, 2012). QCM has been successfully used in various biological analyses to study interactions between biomolecules Takahashi et al, 2012;Patel et al, 2009), biomolecules and abiotic molecules (Tang et al, 2014;Nelson et al, 2015;Kim et al, 2015), because of the capability to monitor the interactions in a dynamic, label-free, and noninvasive way (Takahashi et al, 2009; Uludag and Tothil, 2012).…”

Numerical simulation and experimental study of resonance characteristics of QCM-P devices operating in liquid and their application in biological detection

“…During the past two decades, there has been a rapid increase in employing QCM-based devices in aqueous solutions as biosensors [8,9] to detect interactions involving nucleic-acids/DNA [10], antigen/antibody [11], bacteria/biomimetic-materials [12], proteins [13], and enzymes [14], and also as electrochemistry sensors [15,16] in studying ion intercalation [17] and corrosion rates [18], and as mass sensors in surface chemistry [19,20] .…”

Drug-Protein Interactions for Clinical Research by Nucleic Acid Programmable Protein Arrays-Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation Factor Monitoring Nanoconductometric Assay

“…For this task we coupled NAPPA with a new generation of conductometric devices, namely QCM. QCM_D indeed appears a promising tool to study protein-protein interactions especially in the field of oncology, both cellular and molecular (Cheng et al, 2012).…”