Emerging barcode particles for multiplex bioassays

Abstract

With the increasing demand for multiplex and high-throughput analysis of large numbers of biomolecules, multiplex technology becomes a promising tool for carrying out thousands of individual reactions at the same time for large-scale biological analysis. Among current technologies, suspension arrays based on appropriate barcode particles have been popularly used in multiplex bioassays of many research fields with the ability of unique encoding, such as in the clinical, medicinal, nutritional, and environmental fields. Besides the unique form of barcode, these particles have higher flexibility, better sensitivity, and faster reaction kinetics. In this review, we present some examples of typical barcode particles that are divided into different groups depending on how they are encoded and their applications in multiplex bioassays for different targets such as proteins, DNA and RNA sequences, and cells. The bioassays for monitoring food safety, drug research, and clinical diagnosis are also described.

A Single Magnetic Particle with Nearly Unlimited Encoding Options

“…[23,25] As magnetic signals can be transmitted through many materials that would not allow optical information to pass, such particles could be integrated within and not only on top of the surface of arbitrary objects, thus protecting the information against environmental harm but also against obvious detection and thus counterfeiting. [23,26] If such a magnetic particle marker could be achieved, it would equip materials with intelligence in many fields: it could further reduce the number of counterfeit products, which yield global annual damages of almost 500 billion US$ (2.5 % of global imports), [27] enable the identification and recycling of dark plastics, [23,[28][29][30] or permit the tracking-as well as monitoring-of goods and value chains, and finally could render quality control of materials and processes possible (Figure 1). [19] Although such a magnetic marker technology seems very promising, until now it is commonly accepted that too few magnetic codes are resolvable from magnetic markers, preventing research to achieve it.…”

Nanobarcodes with multidimensional optical information beyond diffraction limit

“…We anticipate that such barcode structures would attract broad interests in a range of applications as information nanocarriers for bio-nanotechnology, life sciences, data safety and storage, once they are incoporated into a variety of matrixes. 35,36,46 The inorganic nanobarcode structures are rigid and it is easy to control the distance accuracy of different codes for the geometrical encoding, in stark contrast with soft geometric barcode counterparts such as dye-tagged DNA barcodes. 34,37 Moreover, they are chemically and optically stable, which enables them as idea information-coded nanocarriers for drug delivery and long time tracking, once the surface of the barcode structures is further modi ed and functionalized with probe molecules and cargos.…”

The emerging technology of biohybrid micro-robots: a review

“…2d) via the secondary polymerization of carbon nanotube hydrogel to form structural color-changeable hydrogel stimulated by cardiomyocyte contractions. The orderly arranged silica nanoparticles produce a photonic bandgap structure, which results in the vivid structural color of hydrogel [82][83][84]. The motion state of the robot can thus be observed directly via scanning the color spectrum for changes.…”