Polyelectrolyte micropatterning using agarose plane stamp and a substrate having microscale features on its surface

Abstract

We have introduced polyelectrolyte micro-patterning technique employing agarose plane stamp and a hard substrate having microscale features on its surface. With this method, chemically micropatterned surfaces with both positive and negative functionalities were successfully embedded in well-defined microstructures, and selective impartment of charge functionalities was confirmed by patterning bead bearing surface charge. Furthermore, this technique allows highly sensitive immobilization of protein onto targeted surface simply by endowing functionalities, which extends the potential of its use as a tool for high-throughput protein microarray and proteomics. Because plane agarose stamp is free of structures on its surface, there is no concern for pattern collapse, and the combination of agarose plane stamp with patterned substrate is more suited for selective protein patterning compared with adopting surface-patterned agarose stamp with flat substrate. Our technique using agarose plane stamp and a substrate having microscale features on its surface suggests a range of possible applications, including the micropatterning of biofunctionalized copolymer having polyelectrolyte block, immobilization of micro- and nanoparticle with biofunctionalities such as biotin and streptavidine, and establishing optoelectronic microstructures with micro-beads on various surfaces.