Site-Selective Chemistry and the Attachment of Peptides to the Surface of a Microelectrode Array

Peptides have been site-selectively placed on microelectrode arrays with the use of both thiol-based conjugate additions and Cu(I)-coupling reactions between thiols and aryl halides. The conjugate addition reactions used both acrylate and maleimide Michael acceptors. Of the two methods, the Cu(I)-coupling reactions proved far superior because of their irreversibility. Surfaces constructed with the conjugate addition chemistry were not stable at neutral pHs, especially the surface using the maleimide acceptor. Once a peptide was placed onto the array, it could be monitored in real-time for its interactions with a biological receptor.