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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Athens, Georgia » U.S. National Poultry Research Center » Quality and Safety Assessment Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #307264
Title: Using atomic force microscopy and surface plasmon resonance to detect specific interactions between ricin and anti-ricin aptamers

Author
item Park, Bosoon
item WANG, BIN - University Of Georgia
item LOU, ZHICHAO - University Of Georgia
item XU, BINGQIAN - University Of Georgia
item KWON, YONGKUK - Animal, Plant And Fisheries Quarantine And Inspection Agency (QIA)

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/6/2013
Publication Date: 3/16/2014
Citation: Park, B., Wang, B., Lou, Z., Xu, B. 2014. Using atomic force microscopy and surface plasmon resonance to detect specific interactions between ricin and anti-ricin aptamers. Meeting Abstract. Cornucopia, Spring 2014, AGFD 107:p 46.

Interpretive Summary: none

Technical Abstract: Nucleic acid aptamers have been widely used as binding reagents for the label free detections of biomolecules. Compare to antibodies, aptamers have demonstrated advantages such as easy synthesis, low cost, and better stability. Therefore, aptamers can be integrated into various detection platforms and provide versatile applications in biosensing such as the detection of toxic proteins in food and environment. Based on the fast development of aptamers research and its integration with several nanotechnologies, the aptamers-based biosensors could provide versatile methods and devices for agriculture. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has the ability to detect single biomolecule. However, due to the sensitivity of single molecule measurement to the physiochemical environments, it is important to test the same properties of the target biomolecule in bulk solution as well as single-molecule platform, specifically for the development of biosensors with nanotechnology. In this study, we developed the method to detect toxic protein ricin with anti-ricin aptamers with two platforms: AFM and surface plasmon resonance (SPR). AFM is a typical single molecule detection platform providing high-resolution images of ricin and the dynamic force spectroscopy of the aptamers-ricin interactions. Recently, SPR became widely used as sensing module with nanotechnology such as depositions and chemical modification on the surface. Therefore, we used both AFM and SPR to measure the affinity of aptamers to ricin to evaluate the possible influence of the environment. The research findings can be used as a reference for the further development of label-free biosensor for pathogen and toxin detection in food matrices.