Impact of Dissociation Constant on the Detection Sensitivity of Polymerization-Based Signal Amplification Reactions

• Main Authors: Kaastrup, Kaja (Contributor), Chan, Leslie (Contributor), Sikes, Hadley (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society (ACS), 2015-02-11T20:15:20Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 Many studies have demonstrated the concept of using free-radical polymerization reactions to provide signal amplification so that molecular recognition events indicative of disease states may be detected in a simple and low-cost manner. We provide the first systematic study of how the dissociation constant impacts detection sensitivity in these assays, having chosen a range of dissociation constants (nanomolar to picomolar) that is typical of those encountered in molecular diagnostic applications that detect protein-protein binding events. In addition, we use experimental results to validate a mass-action kinetic model that may be used to predict assay performance as an alternative or supplement to the empirical approach to developing new polymerization-based amplification assays that has characterized the field to date.