Characterization of cluster-assembled nanostructured titanium oxide coatings as substrates for protein arrays

Protein microarray technologies are rapidly expanding to fulfill current needs of proteome discovery for disease management. Nanostructured materials have been shown to present interesting features when used in biological settings: nanostructured titanium oxide film (ns-TiOx), synthesized by supersonic cluster beam deposition (SCBD), has recently emerged as a biocompatible substrate in different biological assays. The ns-TiOx surface is characterized by a morphology at the nanoscale that can be tuned to modulate specific biomolecule–material interactions. Here we present a systematic characterization of ns-TiOx coatings as protein binding surfaces, comparing their performances with those of most common commercial substrates in protein and antibody microarray assays. Through a robust statistical evaluation of repeatability in terms of coefficient of variation (CV) analysis, we demonstrate that ns-TiOx can be used as reliable substrate for biochips in analytical protein microarray application.