Click‐Chemistry Based Allergen Arrays Generated by Polymer Pen Lithography for Mast Cell Activation Studies |
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| Authors: | Ravi Kumar Alice Bonicelli Sylwia Sekula‐Neuner Andrew C. B. Cato Michael Hirtz Harald Fuchs |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Institute of Nanotechnology (INT) & Karlsruhe Nano Micro Facility (KNMF), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany;2. Physical Institute & Center for Nanotechnology (CeNTech), University of Münster, Münster, Germany;3. Institute of Toxicology and Genetics (ITG), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany |
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| Abstract: | The profiling of allergic responses is a powerful tool in biomedical research and in judging therapeutic outcome in patients suffering from allergy. Novel insights into the signaling cascades and easier readouts can be achieved by shifting activation studies of bulk immune cells to the single cell level on patterned surfaces. The functionality of dinitrophenol (DNP) as a hapten in the induction of allergic reactions has allowed the activation process of single mast cells seeded on patterned surfaces to be studied following treatment with allergen specific Immunoglobulin E antibodies. Here, a click‐chemistry approach is applied in combination with polymer pen lithography (PPL) to pattern DNP‐azide on alkyne‐terminated surfaces to generate arrays of allergen. The large area functionalization offered by PPL allows an easy incorporation of such arrays into microfluidic chips. In such a setup, easy handling of cell suspension, incubation process, and read‐out by fluorescence microscopy will allow immune cell activation screening to be easily adapted for diagnostics and biomedical research. |
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| Keywords: | allergen arrays mast cell activation microarrays microfluidics polymer pen lithography |
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