Looking for zerobackgound, surface functionalized coverslips and possible cooperation

[Kevin_xu]

Hi Everyone, this is Wenxuan Xu, a postdoc from Hongxia Fu's lab at University of Washington, US.

    Our lab focuses on TIRF related single molecular biophysics study therefore the surface of the coverslips is one of our primary concerns. We used to purchase ZeroBkg PEG brush based, biotin coated coverslips from Microsurface, Inc. We have tested many coverslips from other companies, but the ZeroBkg  surface is the best one with great passivation and low background.

    Recently we noticed that the company has ceased their business for some reason but some of our experiments rely on these ultra-low background coverslips, which cannot be commercially found in other companies.

   Could anyone advise some alternatives for the zero background, biotin functionized coverslips? Or if it is possible, can we cooperate with you about the relative surface treatment? Thank you!

    By the way, Do you have any information of Microsurface, Inc. about its current situation and future plan? Much appreciated. - Wenxuan

[CharonY]

Back in the day when we need low background coverslip it, we mostly cleaned them with with piranha and/or plasma cleaning and we mostly did PLL-PEG passivation (or sometimes using silanes). I don't think recall whether we did any biotinylation, though. That being said, the procedures are much less convenient and probably less reproducible than commercial sources. I do not know specific companies off the top of my head, but perhaps just talk to companies selling functionalized coverslips regarding your application. The few I can think of are (I think) specialized more in the area of AFM, so optical background is not a high priority there.

[Kevin_xu]

On 5/4/2023 at 8:10 PM, CharonY said:

Back in the day when we need low background coverslip it, we mostly cleaned them with with piranha and/or plasma cleaning and we mostly did PLL-PEG passivation (or sometimes using silanes). I don't think recall whether we did any biotinylation, though. That being said, the procedures are much less convenient and probably less reproducible than commercial sources. I do not know specific companies off the top of my head, but perhaps just talk to companies selling functionalized coverslips regarding your application. The few I can think of are (I think) specialized more in the area of AFM, so optical background is not a high priority there.

Thank you Charon, we have tried many protocols with PEG passivation. But the protein we are using is von willebrand factor (VWF) which is extremly sticky expecially when we tried to extend it via flow. Surface with tiny nonspecific absorption may cause VWF unable to fully extend or stuck to somewhere while extension. AFM might be a good field to ask, they may also want their surface to be flat or with no nonspecific binding. Thanks!