Early circulating biomarker detection using a wearable microprojection array skin patch

Microprojection array (MPA) skin patches selectively capture circulating biomarkers from the dermal layers of the skin, avoiding the need to extract, handle or process blood. Here we investigate the effect of improving biomarker capture in vivo on MPA detection of a model biomarker (antigen-specific-IgG raised in response to Fluvax vaccine) in a murine model. First, we investigate targeting MPA penetration to biomarker rich regions of the skin by varying MPA penetration depth. We observed a 4-fold increase in biomarker capture from predominantly epidermal to deep dermal penetration (27 ± 9 μm–153 ± 30 μm penetration range). We then study the kinetics of biomarker capture by varying the contact time with skin from rapid application (less than 20 min) to long term application (up to 24 h) with a wearable MPA patch. We observed MPAs reproducibly captured detectable amounts of our model biomarker after 10 min application and a greater than 6-fold increase in capture was observed up to 6 h application. Combining the effect of penetration depth and application time we obtained comparable early detection (after vaccination) of our model biomarker as a standard enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). We expect that integration of these devices with existing detection technologies has potential advantages in rapid diagnostic tests, particularly in cases where laboratory-based sample collection and processing is not available.