Issue 14, 2023

Continuous molecular monitoring of human dermal interstitial fluid with microneedle-enabled electrochemical aptamer sensors

Abstract

The ability to continually collect diagnostic information from the body during daily activity has revolutionized the monitoring of health and disease. Much of this monitoring, however, has been of physical “vital signs”, with the monitoring of molecular markers having been limited to glucose, primarily due to the lack of other medically relevant molecules for which continuous measurements are possible in bodily fluids. Electrochemical aptamer sensors, however, have a recent history of successful in vivo demonstrations in rat animal models. Herein, we present the first report of real-time human molecular data collected using such sensors, successfully demonstrating their ability to measure the concentration of phenylalanine in dermal interstitial fluid after an oral bolus. To achieve this, we used a device that employs three hollow microneedles to couple the interstitial fluid to an ex vivo, phenylalanine-detecting sensor. The resulting architecture achieves good precision over the physiological concentration range and clinically relevant, 20 min lag times. By also demonstrating 90 days dry room-temperature shelf storage, the reported work also reaches another important milestone in moving such sensors to the clinic. While the devices demonstrated are not without remaining challenges, the results at minimum provide a simple method by which aptamer sensors can be quickly moved into human subjects for testing.

Graphical abstract: Continuous molecular monitoring of human dermal interstitial fluid with microneedle-enabled electrochemical aptamer sensors

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
11 Mar 2023
Accepted
06 Jun 2023
First published
14 Jun 2023

Lab Chip, 2023,23, 3289-3299

Author version available

Continuous molecular monitoring of human dermal interstitial fluid with microneedle-enabled electrochemical aptamer sensors

M. Friedel, B. Werbovetz, A. Drexelius, Z. Watkins, A. Bali, K. W. Plaxco and J. Heikenfeld, Lab Chip, 2023, 23, 3289 DOI: 10.1039/D3LC00210A

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