UV Activation of Inert Solid Surfaces for Preparing Protein Micropatterns

Surfaces with micropatterned protein lines and dots have been widely used in the development of protein microarrays, biosensors, and many other devices. In this presentation, we report a simple, one-step UV activation method to transform inert and hydrophobic surfaces into hydrophilic surfaces for protein immobilization. This technique can be applied to activate unmodified polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) or surfaces coated with self-assembled monolayers under ambient environment. Moreover, when a metallic photomask such as TEM grid or chrome mask is employed, various protein micropatterns with a minimum width of 2 μm can be created on the surface. Our XPS results and controlled reducing experiments showed that UV exposure leads to the transformation inert monolayers into active surfaces with aldehyde groups, which are responsible for the covalent immobilization of proteins. Applications of periodic and micropatterned protein lines for developing immunoassays will also be discussed in this presentation.