Surface investigations on the development of a direct optical immunosensor

In the present paper surface studies for the development of a direct optical immunosensor for fast diagnosis of a myocardial infarction are presented. A fatty acid binding protein was detected by monoclonal antibodies. The applied measuring system was the grating coupler BIOS-1. Based on commercially available transducer materials protein immobilisation techniques have been developed and characterised by TOF-SIMS, AFM and EM. Three different label-free assay types were investigated. Only one assay leads to a sensitive and regenerable sensor set-up. It was possible to detect concentrations of the fatty acid binding protein down to 330 ng/ml. The general applicability of a direct optical immunosensor in the field of myocardial infarction diagnosis was demonstrated by this.