Surface Plasmon Resonance technology to assess biological interactions

Molecular interactions between proteins or between proteins and small molecules are pivotal events for selective binding of biological structures and, consequentially, for their correct function. In this scenario, the evaluation of kinetic parameters, characterizing a molecular interactions, is considered a crucial event to reveal the nature of binding processes. The focus on peculiar forces involved in the molecular recognition represents an opportunity to explore biological interactions in real time, and to develop a number of innovative biotechnological methods for diagnosis and/or therapy. Currently, optical biosensors, offering an increasingly effective technology to detect in real time molecular binding, are usually composed by a detector, a sensor surface and a sample delivery system: only definite substances, which are able to interact specifically with the biological part, lead to an optical or electrical signal of the physical transducer. In this review we want to highlight the exponentially-growing interest of Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) based optical biosensors for molecular binding analysis in different research fields.