Graphene Enabled Low-Noise Surface Chemistry for Multiplexed Sepsis Biomarker Detection in Whole Blood

Affinity-based electrochemical (EC) sensors offer a potentially valuable approach for point-of-care (POC) diagnostics applications, and for the detection of diseases, such as sepsis, that require simultaneous detection of multiple biomarkers, but their development has been hampered due to biological fouling and EC noise. Here, an EC sensor platform that enables detection of multiple sepsis biomarkers simultaneously by incorporating a nanocomposite coating composed of crosslinked bovine serum albumin containing a network of reduced graphene oxide nanoparticles that prevents biofouling while maintaining electroconductivity is described. Using nanocomposite coated planar gold electrodes, a sensitive procalcitonin (PCT) sensor is constructed and validated in undiluted serum, which produced an excellent correlation with a conventional ELISA (adjusted r(2) = 0.95) using clinical samples. A single multiplexed platform containing sensors for three different sepsis biomarkers-PCT, C-reactive protein, and pathogen-associated molecular patterns-is also developed, which exhibits specific responses within the clinically significant range without any cross-reactivity. This platform enables sensitive simultaneous EC detection of multiple analytes in human whole blood, and it can be applied to detect any target analyte with an appropriate antibody pair. Thus, this nanocomposite-enabled EC sensor platform may offer a potentially valuable tool for development of a wide range of clinical POC diagnostics.

Automated summary

The study introduces an EC sensor platform with a nanocomposite coating that enables simultaneous detection of multiple sepsis biomarkers, showing a good correlation with clinical samples. This platform offers a sensitive and specific tool for clinical point-of-care diagnostics.