Development of oligonucleotide microarray involving plasma polymerized acrylic acid

This paper presents the manufacturing of biochips by using the COOH- derived polymer coating deposited by plasma polymerization of acrylic acid. This technology is based on depositing a thin layer obtained by plasma polymerization of acrylic acid which allows a further covalent immobilization of biomolecules on glass substrates. The plasma power value was optimized to maximize the stability of plasma polymerized acrylic acid (PPAA) coatings in water, which has a very important role for such applications. In order to obtain a covalent immobilization of DNA probes on the PPAA coated surface, the activation protocol of carboxylic function was carried out with the help of N-Hydroxy Succinimide and 1-Ethyl-3-(3-DimethylAminopropyl) Carbodiimide. The efficiency of PPAA coated in microarray applications was compared with two types of commercial slides. Such surfaces have shown very interesting results in terms of relative density of attached DNA probe molecules and signal-to-background ratio measured for target DNA hybridization. Nonspecific DNA bonding measurements showed only a small amount of nonspecific physisorption between the DNA probe and the PPAA-activated surfaces. This work shows that the plasma polymerization technique can be successfully applied to produce a high-quality glass surface for the manufacturing of DNA arrays.