MMP-2 detective silicon nanowire biosensor using enzymatic cleavage reaction.

Matrix metalloproteinases are proteolytic enzymes that play a significant role in tissue remodeling related with various pathological and physiological processes such as tissue repair, angiogenesis, cirrhosis, morphogenesis, arthritis, and metastasis. Especially, MMP-2 has been shown to be related with benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer. Therefore, there is a need to make sensors with high sensitivity that can measure MMP-2 concentrations precisely. Silicon nanowires have been used in the development of high sensitive chemical sensors and biosensors. The high sensitivity of silicon nanowire based sensor originates in its high surface to volume ratio and ability to field-effect induced local charge transfers. In this study, 100 nm silicon nanowire based field-effect transistors (FET) device was fabricated by electron-beam lithography and MMP-2 was successfully measured by conductance versus time characteristics within 1 pM to 100 nM.