Research Article

Micropatterned agarose gels for stamping arrays of proteins and gradients of proteins

  1. Michael Mayer,
  2. Jerry Yang,
  3. Irina Gitlin,
  4. David H. Gracias,
  5. George M. Whitesides*

Article first published online: 24 JUN 2004

DOI: 10.1002/pmic.200300748

Issue

PROTEOMICS

PROTEOMICS

Special Issue: UNDERSTANDING BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS THROUGH PROTEOMICS – SPS Proceedings 3rd Annual Congress, Basel, Switzerland 2–4 December 2003

Volume 4, Issue 8, pages 2366–2376, August 2004

Additional Information

How to Cite

Mayer, M., Yang, J., Gitlin, I., Gracias, D. H. and Whitesides, G. M. (2004), Micropatterned agarose gels for stamping arrays of proteins and gradients of proteins. PROTEOMICS, 4: 2366–2376. doi: 10.1002/pmic.200300748

Author Information

  1. Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

*Dept. of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, 12 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Fax: +1-617-495-9857

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 20 JUL 2004
  2. Article first published online: 24 JUN 2004
  3. Manuscript Received: 22 SEP 2003

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Keywords:

  • Hydrogel;
  • Micropatterning;
  • Protein gradients;
  • Protein microarrays;
  • Stamping

Abstract

We describe a method for repetitive and rapid formation of planar microarrays and gradients of proteins using patterned agarose stamps. It demonstrates: (i) micropatterning of agarose gels with feature sizes as small as 2 μm; (ii) inking of posts (diameter 50–1000 μm) on patterned agarose stamps with one or multiple (here, eight) proteins and repetitive stamping of patterns (>100 times in the case of one protein) and arrays (20 times in the case of eight proteins) without the need for intermediate re-inking; (iii) transferring spots of proteins with good homogeneity in surface coverage to glass slides; (iv) applying this technique to surface-based immunoassays; (v) stamping that requires only sub-nanomolar amounts of protein (typically ∼3 μg in ∼0.6 μL of solution); (vi) stamping without the need for drying of the proteins, as opposed to stamping with stamps made of poly(dimethylsiloxane); and (vii) patterning gradients of proteins by allowing two proteins to diffuse toward each other in an agarose stamp, followed by printing the protein gradients onto a surface.

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