Surface Plasmon Resonance Sensors: A Comprehensive Guide for Scientists Application note

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SPR is a label-free technique that enables you to get in depth information on how two biomolecules are interacting. This is done on a sensor inside of an instrument such as the OpenSPR or Alto. SPR instruments are primarily used to measure binding affinity and kinetics, and are becoming increasingly more affordable and accessible as researchers realize the value that SPR data can bring to their research.

In a typical SPR assay, one of your binding partners must be immobilized onto the surface of the sensor. The immobilized molecule is referred to as the ligand. The sensor is pre-functionalized with a specific surface chemistry to make immobilization of your ligand easier, so that your other binding partner (referred to as the analyte) can successfully interact with it and your system can output valuable data on how these two molecules are interacting.

Sensor with immobilized ligand (binding partner attached to the surface) and free analyte (binding partner in solution).

Before getting started on your experiment, you must first determine which sensor will be best for your chosen application. This largely depends on your ligand, as there are three major ways of immobilizing ligands on the sensor: covalent coupling, capture coupling and hydrophobic capturing. This guide will walk you through these immobilization techniques so you can determine which sensor will be best suited for your experiment!