Highly Sensitive Detection of TNT Using a Poly(amidoamine) Dendron-Based SPR Immunosensor

In this paper, we describe the fabrication of novel poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendron-based Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) sensor chip surfaces supported by a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of alkanethiol and their use in the highly sensitive detection of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT), which is one of main components of explosives. The fabricated surfaces showed excellent binding capacity for TNT antibodies; this is probably due to the fact that the highly branched functional groups and three-dimensional structure of dendron molecules offer densely arranged binding sites and improve binding effi ciency. A limit of detection (LOD) of ca. 15 ppt (pg ml -1 ) was achieved by inhibition assay.