Dip pen nanolithografy of functionalized oligonucleotides on polymeric surfaces

In order to answer to the growing request of analysis of gene expression and genotyping DNA microarray technology has recently been greatly developed. The development of this technique allowed the simultaneous analysis of many genes, working with small volumes, less time, and generating information about the sequencing of nucleic acids more quickly, easily and cost of traditional methods. Dip-Pen nanolithography is a suitable way to reach good results in this field of research. A further development is to apply this technique to cheap, suitable and affordable substrates, like polymer substrates. The aim of this work is to introduce a qualitative study on the diffusion process of DNA molecules on different plastic surfaces. Short molecules with two different terminations (acrylamide and NH2) have both been deposited through the use of a NanoInk™ DPN nanolithographer on three different polymer substrates (PS, PC, PMMA), in order to investigate the interaction between the biomolecules and the surfaces and to study the influence of temperature, relative humidity and chain length on the calibration coefficient relative to the characteristic diffusion process of these molecules on these substrates.