Plasmon-Enhanced Enzymatic Reactions 2:Optimization of Enzyme Activity by Surface Modification of Silver Island Films with Biotin-Poly (Ethylene-glycol)-Amine.

Surface modification of silver island films (SIFs) was carried out with Biotin-Poly (Ethylene-glycol)-Amine (BEA), which acts as a cross-linker between the silver surface and horse radish peroxidase (HRP) enzyme for optimum plasmon-enhanced enzymatic activity. SIFs-deposited blank glass slides and SIFs-deposited 3-Aminopropyltriethoxysilane(APTES)-coated glass slides were used as our plasmonic surfaces.In this regard, three different extent of loading of SIFs were also prepared (low, medium and high) on APTES-coated glass slides. Streptavidin-linked HRP enzyme was attached to SIFs-deposited blank glass slides and SIFs-deposited APTES-coated glass slides through the well-known biotin-streptavidin interactions. The characterization of these surfaces was done using optical absorption spectroscopy. The loading of SIFs on glass slides was observed to have significant effect on the efficiency of plasmon-enhanced enzymatic activity, where an enhancement of 200% in the enzymatic activity was observed when compared to our previously used strategies for enzyme immobilization in our preceding work[1]. In addition, SIFs-deposited on APTES-coated glass slides were found to be re-usable for plasmon-enhanced enzymatic reactions unlike SIFs deposited on to blank glass slides.