A NANOSCALE POROUS SILICON MICROCAVITY BIOSENSOR FOR NOVEL LABEL-FREE TUBERCULOSIS ANTIGEN-ANTIBODY DETECTION

One third of the world population is estimated to have Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. It is urgent to develop a rapid, inexpensive and convenient diagnostic method for detection of tuberculosis. Porous silicon material has taken more and more attention in recent years for biosensing applications and some useful results have been obtained. In this paper, we report the feasibility of applying porous silicon microcavity biosensor in a novel and relatively rapid serodiagnostic approach. Nowadays, most of serodiagnostic tests are based on labeled detection. Applying label-free detection methods can help develop fast and efficient tuberculosis diagnostic tools, which can meet the current demand. In this study, we use this label-free sensing platform (i.e., porous silicon microcavity) to detect the interaction between 16 kDa antigen and anti-16 kDa antibody. Through a series of experiments, we verify the specificity and examine the sensitivity of this new diagnostic technique. The results show that it is feasible to apply porous silicon microcavity in the tests of tuberculosis.