A: Confocal image of deposited Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) protein deposited with 150nm AFM nanopipette probe with a driving pulsed voltage at the sequence shown in B. The image shows deposition of the protein at the negative provided pulses. Bar is 6 microns.

B: Diagrammatic spatial map of the provided voltage applied on the Nanopipette at a negative pulsed signal as shown in C.

C: Negative pulses voltage provided through two electrodes at the inner of the nanopipette and the metallic coating at the end of the nanopipette’s tip. The image (A) shows clearly that the protein was delivered out to the surface at the blue lines where the voltage is -1V and no writing at the zero voltage areas indicated by green at B.

WSxM software has been used for image processing of the pictures above: I. Horcas et al. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 78, 013705 (2007)

“The general nanoprinting and nanoinjection of proteins on non-conducting or conducting substrates with a high degree of control both in terms of positional and timing accuracy is an important goal that could impact diverse fields from biotechnology (protein chips) to molecular electronics and from fundamental studies in cell biology to nanophotonics.

Nanonics combines capillary electrophoresis (CE), a separation method with considerable control of protein movement, with the unparalleled positional accuracy of an atomic force microscope(AFM). This combination provides the ability to electrophoretically or electroosmotically correlate the timing of protein migration with AFM control of the protein deposition at a high concentration in defined locations and highly confined volumes estimated to be 2 al.

Electrical control of bovine serum albumin printing on standard protein-spotting glass substrates is demonstrated. For this advance, fountain pen nanolithography (FPN) that uses cantilevered glass-tapered capillaries is amended with the placement of electrodes on the nanopipette itself. This results in imposed voltages that are three orders of magnitude less than what is normally used in capillary electrophoresis.

The development of atomic-forcecontrolled capillary electrophoretic printing (ACCEP) has the potential for electrophoretic separation, with high resolution, both in time and in space. The large voltage drop at the tip of the tapered nanopipettes allows for significant increases in concentration of protein in the small printed volumes.

All of these attributes combine to suggest that this methodology should have a significant impact in science and technology.”

Lovsky et at,  Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, Vol. 396, Num. 1, Jan 2010

Ideal systems for this application:

1. MultiView 1000 
2. MultiView 2000 
3. MultiView 4000