MICROARRAYS FOR ANALYTE DETECTION

摘要

On embodiment of the present invention describes the use of microarrays to investigate the carbohydrate binding specificities of bacteria, to detect pathogens, and to screen anti-adhesion therapeutics is reported. This system is ideal for whole cell applications because microarrays present carbohydrate ligands in a manner that mimics interactions at cell-cell interfaces. Other advantages include assay miniaturization, since minimal amounts (e.g., on the order of picomoles) of a ligand (i.e., a biological recognition element) are required to observe binding, and high-throughput, since thousands of compounds can be placed on an array and analyzed in parallel. Pathogen detection experiments can be completed in complex mixtures of cells or protein using the known carbohydrate binding epitopes of the pathogens in question. The non-destructive nature of the arrays allows the pathogen to be harvested and tested for antibacterial susceptibility. These investigations allow microarray-based screening of biological samples for contaminants and combinatorial libraries for anti-adhesion therapeutics.