Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation Monitoring: Enabling Real-Time Characterization of Biological Materials and Their Interactions

In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the number of scientific reports in which the quartz crystalmicrobalance (QCM) technique has played a key role in elucidating various aspects of biological materialsand their interactions. This article illustrates some key advances in the development of a special variation ofthis technique called quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D). The main feature andadvantage of QCM-D, compared with the conventional QCM, is that it in addition to measuring changes inresonant frequency (Δf), a simultaneous parameter related to the energy loss or dissipation (ΔD) of the systemis also measured. Δf essentially measures changes in the mass attached to the sensor surface, while ΔDmeasures properties related to the viscoelastic properties of the adlayer. Thus, QCM-D measures two totallyindependent properties of the adlayer. The focus of this review is an overview of the QCM-D technology andhighlights of recent applications. Specifically, recent applications dealing with DNA, proteins, lipids, and cellswill be detailed. This is not intended as a comprehensive review of all possible applications of the QCM-Dtechnology, but rather a glimpse into a few highlighted application areas in the biomolecular field that werepublished in 2007.

Key Words: QCM-D, quartz, DNA, proteins, lipids, cells.