An Improved Surface Passivation Method for Single-Molecule Studies

Boyang Hua, Kyu Young Han, Ruobo Zhou, Hajin Kim, Xinghua Shi, Sanjaya C Abeysirigunawardena, Ankur Jain, Digvijay Singh, Vasudha Aggarwal, Sarah A Woodson,Taekjip Ha, Nature Methods (2014).

Abstract

We report a surface passivation method based on dichlorodimethylsilane (DDS)-Tween-20 for in vitro single-molecule studies, which, under the conditions tested here, more efficiently prevented nonspecific binding of biomolecules than the standard poly(ethylene glycol) surface. The DDS-Tween-20 surface was simple and inexpensive to prepare and did not perturb the behavior and activities of tethered biomolecules. It can also be used for single-molecule imaging in the presence of high concentrations of labeled species in solution.