A Multichannel Biosensor for Rapid Determination of Cell Surface Glycomic Signatures

Cell surface glycosylation serves a fundamental role in dictating cell and tissue behavior. Cell surface glycomes differ significantly, presenting viable biomarkers for identifying cell types and their states. Glycoprofiling is a challenging task, however, due to the complexity of the constituent glycans. We report here a rapid and effective sensor for surface-based cell differentiation that uses a three-channel sensor produced by noncovalent conjugation of a functionalized gold nanoparticle (AuNP) and fluorescent proteins. Wild-type and glycomutant mammalian cells were effectively stratified using fluorescence signatures obtained from a single sensor element. Blinded unknowns generated from the tested cell types were identified with high accuracy (44 out of 48 samples), validating the robustness of the multichannel sensor. Notably, this selectivity-based high-throughput sensor differentiated between cells, employing a nondestructive protocol that required only a single well of a microplate for detection.