Biosensor analysis of blood esterases for organophosphorus compounds exposure assessment: Approaches to simultaneous determination of several esterases

This paper reviews our previously published data and presents new results on biosensor assay of blood esterases. Tyrosinase and choline oxidase biosensors based on nanostructured polyelectrolyte films were developed for these purposes. Experiments were performed on the quantitative determination of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), butyrylcholinesterase (BChE), carboxylesterase (CaE), and neuropathy target esterase (NTE) in samples of whole blood of rats, mice, and humans. Good agreement was found between biosensor and spectrophotometric assays for AChE, BChE, and CaE. No direct comparison could be made for NTE because its activity cannot be measured spectrophotometrically in whole blood. A new method of simultaneous quantitative determination of AChE and BChE in test mixtures is also described. This method represents a bifunctional biosensor for the simultaneous analysis of choline and phenol based on integration of individual sensors. Algorithms for calculation of separate concentrations of AChE and BChE in the mixture were developed. The mean error of calculated component concentrations was ∼6% for binary test mixtures. The present work provides a foundation for building multiplexed systems for the simultaneous determination of multiple esterases with applications to biomonitoring for exposures to organophosphorus compounds.