Ballerstadt Ralph, Evans Colton, McNichols Roger, Gowda Ashok
BioTex Inc., 8058 El Rio Street, Houston, TX 77054, USA.
Biosens Bioelectron. 2006 Aug 15;22(2):275-84. doi: 10.1016/j.bios.2006.01.008. Epub 2006 Feb 20.
Over the last two decades there as has been surging scientific interest in employing the glucose- and mannose-specific lectin Concanavalin A (ConA) in affinity biosensors for in vivo glucose monitoring in diabetics. Numerous research groups have successfully shown in in vitro and in vivo studies that ConA-based affinity sensors can monitor glucose very accurately and reproducibly over many months, making ConA-based sensors an extremely interesting prospect for long-term implantation in humans. Despite this progress, there remains concern over the safety of ConA, which has widely been reported as a toxin in the literature. In this article, we review in vitro and in vivo studies related to ConA toxicity in order to assess the health risks posed by ConA in the context of an implantable biosensor. Based on the wealth of information available and on data from our own studies, we can conclude that the site of implantation (subcutaneous skin tissue) and the small amount of ConA (<10 microg/microl) being used in implantable glucose-sensitive detector devices like those proposed by various research groups would pose little or no health risk to its bearer even in the event of unexpected sensor rupture.
在过去二十年里，科学界对将葡萄糖和甘露糖特异性凝集素伴刀豆球蛋白A（ConA）用于亲和生物传感器以实现糖尿病患者体内葡萄糖监测的兴趣激增。众多研究团队已在体外和体内研究中成功表明，基于ConA的亲和传感器能够在数月内非常准确且可重复地监测葡萄糖，这使得基于ConA的传感器成为长期植入人体的极具吸引力的前景。尽管取得了这一进展，但人们仍对ConA的安全性存在担忧，文献中广泛报道其具有毒性。在本文中，我们回顾了与ConA毒性相关的体外和体内研究，以便评估在可植入生物传感器背景下ConA所带来的健康风险。基于现有的大量信息以及我们自己的研究数据，我们可以得出结论：植入部位（皮下皮肤组织）以及各种研究团队所提议的可植入葡萄糖敏感检测设备中使用的少量ConA（<10微克/微升），即使在传感器意外破裂的情况下，对其携带者造成的健康风险也很小或不存在。
