Glass slides coated with a poly(methyl methacrylate) layer and plasma micro-nanotextured to acquire 3D topography (referred as 3D micro-nanotextured slides) were evaluated as substrates for biomolecule microarrays. Their performance is compared with that of epoxy-coated glass slides. We found that the proposed three-dimensional (3D) slides offered significant improvements in terms of spot intensity, homogeneity, and reproducibility. In particular, they provided higher spot intensity, by a factor of at least 1.5, and significantly improved spot homogeneity when compared to the epoxy-silane coated ones (intra-spot and between spot coefficients of variation ranging between 5 and 15% for the 3D micro-nanotextured slides and between 25 and 85% for the epoxy-silane coated ones). The latter was to a great extent the result of a strong "coffee-ring" effect observed for the spots created on the epoxy-coated slides; a phenomenon that was severely reduced in the 3D micro-nanotextured slides. The 3D micro-nanotextured slides offered in addition higher signal to noise ratio values over a wide range of protein probe concentrations and shelf-life over one year without requirement for specific storage conditions. Finally, the protocols employed for protein probe immobilization were extremely simple.
Keywords: 3D plasma micro-nanotexturing; Microarrays; Polymer coated glass slides.
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