Finger-Based Printed Sensors Integrated on a Glove for On-Site Screening Of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Virulence Factors

Early screening of clinically relevant pathogens in the environment is a highly desirable goal in clinical care, providing precious information that will improve patient-care outcomes. In this work, a glove-based electrochemical sensor has been designed for point-of-use screening of Pseudomonas aeruginosa's virulence factors. The methodology used for the elaboration of the fabric platform relied on printing the conductive inks on the index and middle fingers of the glove, with the goal of screening pyocyanin and pyoverdine targets. The analytical signatures of the analytes were recorded in about 4 min, via the rapid and selective square-wave-voltammetry technique. Finger-based sensors display good performance and discrimination between the targets and potential interferences, along with good reproducibility. The sensors featured linearity over the 0.01-0.1 mu M range for pyocyanin and 5-50 mu M range for pyoverdine, with sensitivities of 2.51 mu A/mu M for pyocyanin and 1.09 nA/mu M for pyoverdine (R-2 = 0.990 and 0.995, respectively) and detection limits of 3.33 nM for pyocyanin and 1.66 mu M for pyoverdine. Moreover, the sensors were tested in binary mixtures of analytes, with successful outcomes. In order to gain information from the surrounding environment, the active electronic areas of the printed fingers were coated with a conductive hydrogel matrix, and relevant target surfaces were swiped for notification of contaminants. The simple fabrication, low-cost, and reusability of the proposed glove are likely to underpin the progressive drive of wearable sensors toward decentralized environmental and healthcare applications.