文摘
This paper presents the use of the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) sensor concept to probe the formation of macroscopic andlaterally mobile supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) on SiOx-encapsulated nanohole-containing Au and Ag films. A comparison between Au- andAg-based sensor templates demonstrates a higher sensitivity for Au-based templates with respect to both bulk and interfacial refractive index(RI) changes in aqueous solution. The lateral mobility of SLBs formed on the SiOx-encapsulated nanohole templates was analyzed usingfluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP), demonstrating essentially complete (>96%) recovery, but a reduction in diffusivity ofabout 35% compared with SLBs formed on flat SiOx substrates. Furthermore, upon SLB formation, the temporal variation in extinction peakposition of the LSPR active templates display a characteristic shape, illustrating what, to the best of our knowledge, is the first example wherethe nanoplasmonic concept is shown capable of probing biomacromolecular structural changes without the introduction of labels. With asignal-to-noise ratio better than 5 × 102 upon protein binding to the cell-membrane mimics, the sensor concept is also proven competitive withstate-of-the-art label-free sensors.