title: Self-concentrating buoyant glass microbubbles for high sensitivity immunoassays.
abstract: Here, we report the novel application of a material with self-concentrating properties for enhancing the sensitivity of immunoassays. Termed as glass microbubbles, they are antibody functionalized buoyant hollow glass microspheres that simultaneously float and concentrate into a dense monolayer when dispensed in a liquid droplet. This self-concentrating charactaristic of the microbubbles allow for autonomous signal localization, which translates to a higher sensitivity compared to other microparticle-based immunoassays. We then demonstrated a "microbubble array" platform consisting of the glass microbubbles floating in a microfluidic liquid hemisphere array for performing multiplex immunoassays.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Nanomedicine, National Health Research Institutes 35, Keyan Road, Zhunan Town, Miaoli County 35053, Taiwan. chsu@nhri.org.tw and Department of Life Science, National Tsing Hua University, 101, Section 2, Kuang-Fu Road, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Duane S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Juang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Nanomedicine, National Health Research Institutes 35, Keyan Road, Zhunan Town, Miaoli County 35053, Taiwan. chsu@nhri.org.tw.
authors.forename: Chia-Hsien
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Hsu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005455:Fluorescent Antibody Technique / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D005898:Glass; D006801:Humans; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity