Development of an optical fiber SPR sensor for living cell activation

Abstract

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors provide a useful means to study the interactions of biological molecules and the reaction of living cells on a sensor chip. However, conventional SPR sensors are bulky, expensive and complicated to use as common diagnostic equipment. In this study, we developed a relatively small and simple SPR system, using optical fibers of 250 microm diameter to detect the activation of living cells attached to the fiber tip. For this system, the core of 200 microm diameter with 1cm length of an optical fiber was coated by gold film with 50 nm thickness to cause plasmon resonance. The light provided by a white LED and attenuated due to a SPR phenomenon in the sensor part was detected and analyzed using a spectrum detector. The difference in solvents with various refractive indexes and protein-bindings to the sensor tip was detected with sufficient sensitivity. Moreover, it detected a sustained increase of AR in a real-time manner, when RBL-2H3 mast cells were fixed onto the fiber tip and stimulated by an antigen. This small fiber SPR system might serve as a useful tool for various clinical examinations either within or outside the body.

New trends in instrumental design for surface plasmon resonance-based biosensors

“…Another light source that is commonly employed for SPR and SPR imaging application is a light emitting diode or LED as demonstrated in our lab and others (Suzuki et al 2005; Wilkop et al 2004; Yanase et al 2010; Yang and Cho 2008). Specifically, the creation of an SPR imager using a radially polarized illumination from a LED at 530 nm to obtain speckle-free images with high spatial resolution along all orientations was recently reported (Vander and Lipson 2009).…”

Fiber Optic Sensors Based on Nanostructured Materials

“…Although several examples of optical fiber SPR-based sensors can be found in literature, biosensors and chemical sensor are of particular interest [115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122][123]. As an example, in Fig.…”

Biomedical sensor technologies on the platform of mobile phones

“…An optical fiber SPR system can detect reactions of living cells attached to the fiber tip in a real-time manner, and human blood-group detections have been carried out by SPR with high accuracy [27,28]. Other biomedical devices like ring-shaped photodiode fabricated and mounted on a printed circuit board for pulse oximetry measurements and optical sensors used miniature LEDs for cerebral blood volume measurement are both novel and useful [29,30].…”