Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
7232539 Biosensors and Bioelectronics 2015 7 Pages PDF
Abstract
Blood glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), reflecting the average blood glucose level in the proceeding 2-3 months, is recommended for screening/diagnosing and patient management of diabetes. However, accurate measurement of the HbA1c level at the point of care is hampered by costly, large-scale instruments (such as high-performance liquid chromatography) or reagent instability of classical immunologic methods, which involve antibody-based immunoturbidimetry. In this work, an integrated microfluidic system using aptamer-based testing to measure HbA1c in blood samples is therefore presented. This measuring system used nucleic-acid aptamers that exhibited high sensitivity and high specificity for hemoglobin and HbA1c to perform a stable and robust testing. The compact microfluidic system consumed less samples and reagents and significantly shortened the detection time. Combining the advantages of microfluidics and aptamers, this integrated microsystem presents a promising tool for accurate and point-of-case HbA1c detection. To demonstrate its clinical utility, whole blood samples with clinically-relevant concentrations of HbA1c and Hb were automatically measured on the integrated microfluidic system. Experimental data showed that the developed aptamer-based microfluidic system is capable of detecting HbA1c and Hb with a good linear response. The entire process was completed within 25 min. The aptamer-antibody on-chip sandwich immunoassay may be further refined to allow diabetes screening and diagnosis at lower cost and earlier phase to minimize the risk of diabetic complications.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Chemistry Analytical Chemistry
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