Lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals for biological sensing applications
biosensor; cells; Chemistry; chromonics; Crystallography; ligand-receptor binding; liquid crystal; Materials Science
We describe director distortions in the nematic liquid crystal (LC) caused by a spherical particle with tangential surface orientation of the director and show that light transmittance through the distorted region is a steep function of the particle's size. The effect allows us to propose a real-time microbial sensor based on a lyotropic chromonic LC (LCLC) that detects and amplifies the presence of immune complexes. A cassette is filled with LCLC, antibody, and antigen-bearing particles. Small and isolated particles cause no macroscopic distortions of the uniformly aligned LCLC. Upon antibody-antigen binding, the growing immune complexes.
Shiyanovskii S V; Lavrentovich O D; Schneider T; Ishikawa T; Smalyukh I I; Woolverton C J; Niehaus G D; Doane K J
Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals
2005
2005
Journal Article
<a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/15421400590957288" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">10.1080/15421400590957288</a>
Real-time microbe detection based on director distortions around growing immune complexes in lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals
cells; ligand-receptor binding; Physics
We describe director distortions in the nematic liquid crystal (LC) caused by a spherical particle with tangential surface orientation of the director and show that light transmittance through the distorted region is a steep function of the particle's size. The effect allows us to propose a real-time microbial sensor based on a nontoxic lyotropic chromonic LC (LCLC) that detects and amplifies the presence of immune complexes. A cassette is filled with LCLC, antibody, and antigen-bearing particles. Small and isolated particles cause no macroscopic distortions of the LCLC. Upon antibody-antigen binding, the growing immune complexes distort the director and cause detectable optical transmittance between crossed polarizers.
Shiyanovskii S V; Schneider T; Smalyukh I I; Ishikawa T; Niehaus G D; Doane K J; Woolverton C J; Lavrentovich O D
Physical Review E
2005
2005-02
Journal Article
<a href="http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.71.020702" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">10.1103/PhysRevE.71.020702</a>