RESUMEN
This paper analyzes the biochemical equilibria between bivalent receptors, homo-bifunctional ligands, monovalent inhibitors, and their complexes. Such reaction schemes arise in the immune response, where immunoglobulins (bivalent receptors) bind to pathogens or allergens. The equilibria may be described by an infinite system of algebraic equations, which accounts for complexes of arbitrary size n (n being the number of receptors present in the complex). The system can be reduced to just 3 algebraic equations for the concentrations of free (unbound) receptor, free ligand and free inhibitor. Concentrations of all other complexes can be written explicitly in terms of these variables. We analyze how concentrations of key (experimentally-measurable) quantities vary with system parameters. Such measured quantities can furnish important information about dissociation constants in the system, which are difficult to obtain by other means. We provide analytical expressions and suggest specific experiments that could be used to determine the dissociation constants.
RESUMEN
We used Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) to detect binding events between streptavidin and biotinylated lipid bilayers. The binding events took place at the surface between microfluidic channels and anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) with the latter serving as substrates. The bilayers were incorporated in the substrate pores. It was revealed that non-bound molecules were easily washed away and that large suspended cells (Salmonella enterica) are less likely to interfere with the monitoring process: when focusing to the lower surface of the channel, one may resolve mostly the bound molecules.
