Vývoj optických biosenzorů pro měření nízkých koncentrací látek

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the detection of substances using a method called Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR). SPR is a modern and very sensitive technique based on the physical principle of light interacting with electrons on the surface of a metal, which allows the detection of molecular interactions without the need for labeling. As a result, SPR is widely used in many scientific fields such as biochemistry, molecular biology, pharmacology, food analysis, drug development, environmental monitoring and materials science. The SPR method has the potential to monitor the binding of biological molecules (proteins, DNA, small molecules) and provides quantitative data on kinetics and affinity. Surface plasmon resonance is a high-sensitivity method that is used not only for basic research but also for industrial applications, including the development of new drugs, the diagnosis of diseases or the investigation of contaminants in food and the environment. In the case of imaging and evaluation of interactions between molecules using a CCD camera, this is a newly used version of SPR called Surface Plasmon Resonance imaging (SPRi). This innovative variant of the SPR method allows the surface of the biochip to be monitored at many sites simultaneously, resulting in parallel processing of data from multiple binding sites. SPRi thus provides a significant increase in experimental efficiency, especially when large numbers of samples need to be analysed or different experimental conditions need to be tested in parallel. An integral part of the system is a biochip used to detect the target substance. The biochip commercially consists of a glass prism on which a thin layer of metal, usually gold, is deposited, which is capable of building up surface plasmons. 4 The aim of this work is to design an efficient method of surface treatment of the biochip in order to increase the sensitivity of the SPRi method in detecting low concentrations of substances. This proposal includes optimization of the type of metal used, selection of suitable modification materials and detailed analysis of their influence on the resulting sensitivity, which could have a major impact on its further development and practical application in various research and industrial fields.