Review of Transducer Principles for Label-Free Biomolecular Interaction Analysis

Label-free biomolecular interaction analysis is an important technique to study the chemical binding between e.g., protein and protein or protein and small molecule in real-time. The parameters obtained with this technique, such as the affinity, are important for drug development. While the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) instruments are most widely used, new types of sensors are emerging. These developments are generally driven by the need for higher throughput, lower sample consumption or by the need of complimentary information to the SPR data. This review aims to give an overview about a wide range of sensor transducers, the working principles and the peculiarities of each technology, e.g., concerning the set-up, sensitivity, sensor size or required sample volume. Starting from optical technologies like the SPR and waveguide based sensors, acoustic sensors like the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and the film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR), calorimetric and electrochemical sensors are covered. Technologies long established in the market are presented together with those newly commercially available and with technologies in the early development stage. Finally, the commercially available instruments are summarized together with their sensitivity and the number of sensors usable in parallel and an outlook for potential future developments is given.