SELF-ASSEMBLED MONOLAYER-ASSISTED SILICON NANOWIRE BIOSENSOR FOR STUDYING PROTEIN-DNA INTERACTIONS

A self-assembled monolayer (SAM)-assisted silicon nanowire (SiNW) biosensor for studying protein-DNA interactions is presented. The SiNW surface was coated with a vinyl-terminated SAM, and the termination of the surface was changed to carboxylic acid via oxidation. DNA modified with amino group was subsequently immobilized on the SiNW surface. Protein-DNA binding was finally investigated by the functionalized SiNW biosensor. We observed that ERα had high sequence specificity to the SiNW biosensor which was functionalized with three different ERE including perfect, mutant and scrambled DNA sequences. We also demonstrated that the specific DNA-functionalized SiNW biosensor was capable of detecting ERα as low as 10 fM.