Patent ID: 7981695

Claim:
A diagnostic method for use in detecting the presence of, or information about, a target having a molecular feature of interest, comprising: contacting the target with at least two or more plasmon resonant entities (PREs) having surface localized molecules to produce a PRE/target complex, wherein the target has at least two proximately spaced ligand-binding sites and the surface localized molecule is one of a ligand/ligand-binding site conjugate pair selected from the group of pairs consisting of antigen/antibody, hormone/receptor, drug/receptor, effector/receptor, enzyme/substrate, lipid/lipid binding agent and complementary nucleic acids strands; illuminating the target with an optical light source; and determining the presence of or information about the target by detecting a plasmon resonance spectral emission characteristic of the complex; wherein said complex includes at least two proximately spaced PREs that have a spectral emission signature different from that of PREs in the absence of binding to the target.