ACS Sens. 2019 Apr 26;4(4):1109-1117. doi: 10.1021/acssensors.9b00476. Epub 2019 Apr 2.
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the main active component in marijuana and the rapid detection of THC in human body fluid plays a critical role in forensic analysis and public health. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensing has been increasingly used to detect illicit drugs; however, only limited SERS sensing results of THC in methanol solution have been reported, while its presence in body fluids, such as saliva or plasma, has yet to be investigated. In this article, we demonstrate the trace detection of THC in human plasma and saliva solution using a SERS-active substrate formed by in situ growth of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) on diatom frustules. THC at extremely low concentration of 1 pM in plasma and purified saliva solutions were adequately distinguished with good reproducibility. The SERS peak at 1603 cm with standard deviation of 3.4 cm was used for the evaluation of THC concentration in a methanol solution. Our SERS measurement also shows that this signature peak experiences a noticeable wavenumber shift and a slightly wider variation in the plasma and saliva solution. Additionally, we observed that THC in plasma or saliva samples produces a strong SERS peak at 1621 cm due to the stretching mode of O-C═O, which is related to the metabolic change of THC structures in body fluid. To conduct a quantitative analysis, principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to analyze the SERS spectra of 1 pM THC in methanol solution, plasma, and purified saliva samples. The maximum variability of the first three principal components was achieved at 71%, which clearly denotes the impact of different biological background signals. Similarly, the SERS spectra of THC in raw saliva solution under various metabolic times were studied using PCA and 98% of the variability is accounted for in the first three principal components. The clear separation of samples measured at different THC resident times can provide time-dependent information on the THC metabolic process in body fluids. A linear regression model was used to estimate the metabolic rate of THC in raw saliva and the predicted metabolic time in the testing data set matched well with the training data set. In summary, the hybrid plasmonic-biosilica SERS substrate can achieve ultrasensitive, near-quantitative detection of trace levels of THC in complex body fluids, which can potentially transform forensic sensing techniques to detect marijuana abuse.
四氢大麻酚(THC)是大麻中的主要活性成分,因此快速检测人体液中的 THC 在法医分析和公共卫生领域具有至关重要的作用。表面增强拉曼散射(SERS)传感已越来越多地用于检测非法药物;然而,仅有有限的关于甲醇溶液中 THC 的 SERS 传感结果被报道,而其在体液(如唾液或血浆)中的存在尚未被研究。在本文中,我们展示了通过在硅藻壳上原位生长银纳米颗粒(Ag NPs)形成的 SERS 活性基底,对人血浆和唾液溶液中的 THC 进行痕量检测。在血浆和纯化的唾液溶液中,可充分区分浓度低至 1 pM 的 THC,且具有良好的重现性。SERS 峰值在 1603 cm 处,标准偏差为 3.4 cm,可用于评估甲醇溶液中 THC 的浓度。我们的 SERS 测量还表明,该特征峰在血浆和唾液溶液中经历了明显的波数位移和略微更宽的变化。此外,我们观察到,由于 THC 结构在体液中的代谢变化,在血浆或唾液样本中,THC 会产生一个位于 1621 cm 处的强 SERS 峰,该峰对应于 O-C═O 的伸缩模式。为了进行定量分析,我们应用主成分分析(PCA)对甲醇溶液、血浆和纯化的唾液样本中 1 pM THC 的 SERS 光谱进行分析。前三个主成分的最大可变性达到 71%,这清楚地表明了不同生物背景信号的影响。同样,使用 PCA 研究了不同代谢时间下原始唾液溶液中 THC 的 SERS 光谱,前三个主成分解释了 98%的可变性。在不同 THC 驻留时间下测量的样品的清晰分离,可以提供关于 THC 在体液中代谢过程的时间依赖性信息。使用线性回归模型估计了原始唾液中 THC 的代谢率,测试数据集的预测代谢时间与训练数据集吻合良好。综上所述,混合等离子体-生物硅 SERS 基底可以实现对复杂体液中痕量 THC 的超灵敏、近乎定量检测,这有可能使法医检测技术发生变革,以检测大麻滥用。
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