Although many diseases have no obvious symptoms in the early diagnosis, the immune system defends itself in the early stage of diseases. Corresponding biomarkers in sweat, urine, tears, blood, and exhaled breath, can be early warning signals. But how can technology be leveraged to use these biomarkers as signals that provide early disease warnings?
Prof. Jiang Changlong’s research team from the Institute of Solid State Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, have developed a visual detection analysis for lung cancer as well as ketosis/diabetes via different testing probes.
The team designed and prepared two high-efficiency organic ratio fluorescent nanoprobes, allowing for the detection of biomarkers in exhaled breath by combining them with the colour recogniser in many smartphones.
A portable smartphone platform, based on a single-particle dual-emission ratio fluorescent probe that visually detects the isopropanol in exhaled breath, could identify early lung cancer risk.
Another fluorescent sensor platform designed by the same team effectively captured acetone in blood and exhaled breath to identify ketosis/diabetes.
Researchers developed corresponding ratio fluorescent probes to identify acetone and isopropanol, and used the 3D printing technology and a smartphone app (colour recogniser) to complete the visualization, on-site and semi-quantitative detection of biomarkers.
Through the ratio fluorescence strategy, two different colours of fluorescence probe are mixed at an appropriate ratio.
When the biomarker is present, one type of fluorescence is quenched while the internal standard fluorescence remains unchanged, so that it can present a clear colour under a UV lamp irradiation.
Researchers used a smartphone to recognise the colour RGB value of the fluorescent probe solution.
This ratio probe is prepared by carbon dots with low toxicity, high luminous efficiency and organic fluorescent materials with a wide luminous colour range, easy modification of the structure, and good tunability.
Combined with the fluorescence sensing platform prepared by the smart phone, it can perform on-site, fast, semi-quantitative, and visual detection.
The related results have been published in Analytical Chemistry.
The two methods are expected to expand the application of potential volatile biomarker research for preliminary monitoring and clinical diagnosis.
Source: Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences
