Towards ultrasensitive biosensors based on virus-like particles and plasmonic surface lattice resonance
Weronika Andrzejewska, Nadzeya Khinevich, Patryk Obstarczyk, Szymon Murawka, Tomas Tamulevičius, Joanna Olesiak‐Bańska, Sigitas Tamulevičius, Mikołaj Lewandowski
Abstract
Plasmonic surface lattice resonance (SLR) is a phenomenon in which individual localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) excited in periodically-arranged plasmonic nanoparticles couple through the interaction with the propagating diffracted incident light. The SLR optical absorption peak is by at least one order of magnitude more intense than the LSPR one, making SLR superior for applications in which LSPR is commonly used. Recently, we have developed a route for the fabrication of spherical virus-like particles (VLPs) with plasmonic cores and protein coronas, where the LSPR in the cores amplifies vibrational Raman signals originating from protein-antibody bonding [ACS Synth. Biol. 12 (2023) 2320]. The particles show great potential in biodetection, however, the intensity of the signals recorded in solution is not strong enough to detect antibodies at very low concentrations. Here, we show that by ordering the VLPs in periodic nanoarrays exhibiting SLR amplifies the signals by two orders of magnitude, revealing superior potential of VLP-SLR arrays in ultrasensitive biodetection. • A well-ordered array of virus-like particles (VLPs) was fabricated using the capillary-assisted particle assembly (CAPA) technique; • The particles consisted of gold cores and protein coronas that remained biologically-active following the deposition; • The array exhibited the plasmonic surface lattice resonance (SLR) related to the ordering of VLPs and the presence of the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) in the cores; • The SLR was found to amplify the biodetection-relevant Raman spectroscopy signals originating from protein-antibody interactions by two orders of magnitude compared to LSPR of VLPs in solution.