Patent ID: 8574835

Claim:
A method of detecting a nucleotide incorporation, comprising: (a) disposing a particle in a reaction chamber including, or capacitively coupled to, a field effect transistor, wherein the particle includes a hydrophillic non-nucleosidic polymer network and a plurality of nucleic acids attached to the non-nucleosidic polymer network, the particle having a coefficient of variance of volume of not greater than 15%, the non-nucleosidic polymer network includes a polyacrylamide gel having a total monomer percentage in a range of 3% to 20% and being permeable to proteins having a size in the range of 50 kilodaltons to 200 kilodaltons; (b) performing a nucleotide incorporation whereby a nucleotide is incorporated into one or more of the plurality of nucleic acids attached to the polymer network of the particle, and wherein the particle includes a sufficiently high concentration of attached nucleic acids to emit, upon such performing, a pH signal that can be detected by the field effect transistor; and (c) detecting the pH signal using the field effect transistor, thereby detecting the nucleotide incorporation.