Biosensor Chips for Easy Detection of Plant Molecular Markers

An efficient and inexpensive assay that uses custom-designed biosensor chips to detect unique transgenes in biotech crops was reported by a group of Chinese researchers. The chips can also be used for detecting molecular markers in genomes of model plants such as Arabidopsis.

The biosensor chips work by hybridizing labelled PCR fragments with capture probes covalently attached to their surface. A color change from gold to blue or purple on the chip surface indicates the presence of the specific target sequences. The color can be visualized by the unaided human eye, wrote the group of Su-Lan Bai in their paper published by the Plant Journal. The simple detection method makes this technology less expensive than current microarray methods because costly image documentation systems are not required.

The researchers have shown that various transgenes in biotech canola, corn, soybeans, and cotton can be successfully detected by the chips. The conclude that their discovery can help in nucleotide sequence-based identification assays and have wide applications in crop breeding, trait mapping, and other work requiring positive detection of specific sequences.

For the abstract, with links to the full paper, please visit
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-313X.2006.02951.x