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Highly Sensitive Liquid Crystal-Based Optical Biosensor for Quantitative Detection of Proteins

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Open Access
Article Type Research Article
Subject Biology Group
OCLC JBRES Record
Fiorentini L, Barboza R, Logovatovskaya M, Rocchetti E, Mariani P and Lucchetti L
Issue: Volume6-Issue11
Pages: 1784-1793
Received: 2025-11-17
Accepted: 2025-11-25
Published: 2025-11-28

Abstract

We report on highly sensitive label free optical biosensing of proteins based on nematic liquid crystals. The principles of biosensing are related to the change in the liquid crystal alignment induced by biomolecules adsorbed on the cell inner surface, which can be easily detected with a polarizing optical microscope. Although this approach is well known, we propose here an experimental strategy that allows us to reach a detection limit of the order of 10-13 g/ml, orders of magnitude higher than the one reported in literature for the same kind of optical biosensors. Furthermore, our method leads to assess a well-defined, specific dependence of protein concentration on cell birefringence, for rapid quantitative biosensing. The proposed biosensor can additionally be used for the detection of antibodies.

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© 2025 Fiorentini L, et al. Distributed under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 Creative CommonsAttribution

How to cite this article

Fiorentini L, Barboza R, Logovatovskaya M, Rocchetti E, Mariani P, Lucchetti L. Highly Sensitive Liquid Crystal-Based Optical Biosensor for Quantitative Detection of Proteins. J Biomed Res Environ Sci. 2025 Nov 28; 6(11): 1784-1793. doi: 10.37871/jbres2230, Article ID: JBRES2230, Available at: https://www. jelsciences.com/articles/jbres2230.pdf

Subject area(s)

BioanalysisBiochemistryBiotechnology

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