A surface plasmon resonance sensor for quantitative analysis of mineralization of osteoblast cells

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is a well-known optical technique for detection of protein absorption or dielectric concentration on a metal surface. In this study, we developed an angle-scanning SPR biosensor that accurately measures the amount of mineralization using MC3T3-el cells without any damage to the cells. Since there have been few accurate methods to quantitatively measure mineralization of osteogenesis, our results are compared with the traditional method of Alizarin red S staining. The result showed that the SPR sensor is much more accurate and easier than the staining method without cell destruction. It is also proven that the SPR sensor is a useful method to analyze the mineralization of live cells.