Fetter Lisa C, McDonough Matthew H, Kippin Tod E, Plaxco Kevin W
Interdepartmental Program in Biomolecular Science and Engineering, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California 93106, United States.
Department of Statistics and Applied Probability, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California 93106, United States.
ACS Sens. 2024 Dec 27;9(12):6675-6684. doi: 10.1021/acssensors.4c02274. Epub 2024 Nov 21.
Electrochemical aptamer-based (EAB) sensors are the first technology supporting high-frequency, real-time, in vivo molecular measurements that is independent of the chemical reactivity of its targets, rendering it easily generalizable. As is true for all biosensors, however, EAB sensor performance is affected by the measurement environment, potentially reducing accuracy when this environment deviates from the conditions under which the sensor was calibrated. Here, we address this question by measuring the extent to which physiological-scale environmental fluctuations reduce the accuracy of a representative set of EAB sensors and explore the means of correcting these effects. To do so, we first calibrated sensors against vancomycin, phenylalanine, and tryptophan under conditions that match the average ionic strength, cation composition, pH, and temperature of healthy human plasma. We then assessed their accuracy in samples for which the ionic composition, pH, and temperature were at the lower and upper ends of their physiological ranges. Doing so, we find that physiologically relevant fluctuations in ionic strength, cation composition, and pH do not significantly harm EAB sensor accuracy. Specifically, all 3 of our test-bed sensors achieve clinically significant mean relative accuracy (i.e., better than 20%) over the clinically or physiologically relevant concentration ranges of their target molecules. In contrast, physiologically plausible variations away from the temperature used for calibration induce more substantial errors. With knowledge of the temperature in hand, however, these errors are easily ameliorated. It thus appears that physiologically induced changes in the sensing environment are likely not a major impediment to clinical application of this in vivo molecular monitoring technology.
基于电化学适配体的(EAB)传感器是第一项支持高频、实时、体内分子测量的技术,该技术独立于其靶标的化学反应性,因此易于推广。然而,与所有生物传感器一样,EAB传感器的性能会受到测量环境的影响,当这种环境偏离传感器校准的条件时,可能会降低准确性。在这里,我们通过测量生理尺度的环境波动在多大程度上降低了一组代表性EAB传感器的准确性来解决这个问题,并探索校正这些影响的方法。为此,我们首先在与健康人血浆的平均离子强度、阳离子组成、pH值和温度相匹配的条件下,针对万古霉素、苯丙氨酸和色氨酸对传感器进行校准。然后,我们在离子组成、pH值和温度处于其生理范围下限和上限的样本中评估它们的准确性。通过这样做,我们发现离子强度、阳离子组成和pH值在生理相关的波动不会显著损害EAB传感器的准确性。具体而言,我们测试平台上的所有3种传感器在其靶分子的临床或生理相关浓度范围内均达到了具有临床意义的平均相对准确度(即优于20%)。相比之下,偏离校准所用温度的生理上合理的变化会导致更显著的误差。然而,有了温度信息,这些误差很容易得到改善。因此,看来生理诱导的传感环境变化可能不是这种体内分子监测技术临床应用的主要障碍。