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Biosensors

Microcantilevers to lift biomolecules

Nature Nanotechnology volume 10, pages 830–831 (2015)Cite this article

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Nanomechanical sensors can now detect femtomolar concentrations of analytes within minutes without the need to passivate the underlying cantilever surface.

Archimedes, the Greek mathematician, is once believed to have said “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, I will lift the earth.” Today, this famous quote could be paraphrased as 'Give me a lever small enough, and I will 'weigh' molecules.' Microscale versions of Archimedes levers, called microcantilevers, have been used in several forms to lift or strain molecular-scale structures by invoking nanomechanical signal transduction. Specific binding of analytes to their complementary partners on the cantilever surface induces lateral surface stress, resulting in bending of the free end of the cantilever. The sensitivity of the assay is measured by how tiny a bend one can detect using lasers, whereas the selectivity is governed by specificity of the complementary partner for the analyte. Microcantilevers have been used to study various biological interactions1,2,3,4,5,6, for quantifying antibiotics in blood serum7 and for detecting bacterial resistance to antibiotics8 with excellent specificity and sensitivity. However, cantilevers are limited by non-specific binding at the bottom surface, which may negate the specific binding that occurs at the top surface. Passivation may resolve these issues but it requires tedious optimization. Writing in Nature Nanotechnology, Joseph Ndieyira and colleagues at University College London, Imperial College London and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology now show that by controlling the concentration of the receptor footprint on the cantilever surface, it is possible to overcome competing stresses from opposing cantilever surfaces9. This approach allows direct capture of molecules at femtomolar concentrations within minutes without the need to passivate the underlying cantilever surface.

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Figure 1: Illustration of multiplexed cantilever system with on-chip readout technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gajendra S. Shekhawat and Vinayak P. Dravid are in the Department of Material Science and Engineering and the NUANCE Center, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA,

    Gajendra S. Shekhawat & Vinayak P. Dravid

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  1. Gajendra S. Shekhawat
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  2. Vinayak P. Dravid
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Correspondence to Gajendra S. Shekhawat or Vinayak P. Dravid.

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Shekhawat, G., Dravid, V. Microcantilevers to lift biomolecules. Nature Nanotech 10, 830–831 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.187

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