A low-cost sensor for Cystic Fibrosis diagnosis
A new, inexpensive method for detecting salt concentrations in sweat or other bodily fluids has been developed by PennState biomaterials scientists. The fluorescent sensor, derived from citric acid molecules, is highly sensitive and highlyselective for chloride, the key diagnostic marker in cystic fibrosis.
“Salt concentrations can be important for many health-related conditions,” said Jian Yang, professor of biomedicalengineering. “Our method uses fluorescent molecules based on citrate, a natural molecule that is essential for bone health.”
Compared to other methods used for chloride detection, Yang’s citrate-based fluorescent material is much more sensitive
to chloride and is able to detect it over a far wider range of concentrations. Yang’s material is also sensitive to bromide, anothersalt that can interfere with the results of traditional clinical laboratory tests.
Even trace amounts of bromide canthrow off test results. With the citrate-based sensor, Yang’s group can distinguish the difference between chloride and bromide, and are working to establish a possible new standard for bromide detection in diagnosis of the disease.
Yang is collaborating with Penn State electrical engineer, Professor Zhiwen Liu, to build a handheld device that canmeasure salt concentrations in sweat using his citrate-based molecules and a cell phone. This could also be useful in developing countries where people have limited access to expensive analytical equipment.
“We are developing a platform material for sensing that is low cost, can be automated, requires no titration by trained staff orexpensive instrumentation as in hospitals, and provides fast, almost instantaneous, ” he said.In a paper titled “Citrate-based fluorescent materials for low-cost chloridesensing in the diagnosis of Cystic Fibrosis,” recently published online in a
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) journal Chemical Science, Yang compared their citrate sensors against thegold standard sweat test performed in a clinical laboratory. Their results were similar.“Beyond cystic fibrosis, our platform can also be used for many other diseases, such as metabolic alkalosis, Addison’s disease,and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
All of those diseases display abnormal concentrations of chloride in the urine,serum or cerebral spinal fluid,” Yang said. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, “Cystic fibrosis is a common genetic disease within the white population inthe United States. The disease occurs in 1 in 2,500 to 3,500 white newborns. Cystic fibrosis is less common in other ethnicgroups, affecting about 1 in 17,000 African-Americans and 1 in 31,000 Asian Americans.”Robert Vender, M.D., a pulmonary specialist at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center who treats cysticfibrosis patients, says,
“According to recommendations from the CF Foundation (Bethesda, MD) all patients undergoing evaluation forpossible diagnosis of CF should have sweat testing performed.
To date, measurements of sweat chloride (mmol/L) areonly used for diagnostic purposes. However given the recent scientific and medical advances in CF patient directedtherapy and the development and FDA approval of therapies specifically designed to modify cystic fibrosis transmembraneconductance regulator (CFTR) protein function, serial measurements of sweat chloride may have potential as a therapeutic surrogate indicator of drug effect and is currently measured in many pharmaceutical industry sponsored studies as aresponse to these novel treatments. The link between the surrogate marker of sweat chloride and actual objective clinicaloutcomes such as improved lung function still remains to be determined.”Lead author Jimin Kim, a graduate student in Yang’s lab, says,
“Our citrate-based platform for designing fluorescentsensors provide us with great versatility in tailoring sensors to specific applications. We hope to produce more sensorswith interesting applications in the near future.”Also contributing to this work are Yang’s former postdoctoral fellow Dr. Zhiwei Xie and Michael Creer, M.D., a professorin the Penn State College of Medicine and chief of clinical pathology along with his colleague,Chris Pederson, who verified the results in clinical laboratory, and the previouslymentioned professor of electrical engineering, Zhiwen Liu.
This work was supported in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation Article Source: Lab Manager Penn State Materials Research Institute
11 October 2016
“Salt concentrations can be important for many health-related conditions,” said Jian Yang, professor of biomedicalengineering. “Our method uses fluorescent molecules based on citrate, a natural molecule that is essential for bone health.”
Compared to other methods used for chloride detection, Yang’s citrate-based fluorescent material is much more sensitive
to chloride and is able to detect it over a far wider range of concentrations. Yang’s material is also sensitive to bromide, anothersalt that can interfere with the results of traditional clinical laboratory tests.
Even trace amounts of bromide canthrow off test results. With the citrate-based sensor, Yang’s group can distinguish the difference between chloride and bromide, and are working to establish a possible new standard for bromide detection in diagnosis of the disease.
Yang is collaborating with Penn State electrical engineer, Professor Zhiwen Liu, to build a handheld device that canmeasure salt concentrations in sweat using his citrate-based molecules and a cell phone. This could also be useful in developing countries where people have limited access to expensive analytical equipment.
“We are developing a platform material for sensing that is low cost, can be automated, requires no titration by trained staff orexpensive instrumentation as in hospitals, and provides fast, almost instantaneous, ” he said.In a paper titled “Citrate-based fluorescent materials for low-cost chloridesensing in the diagnosis of Cystic Fibrosis,” recently published online in a
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) journal Chemical Science, Yang compared their citrate sensors against thegold standard sweat test performed in a clinical laboratory. Their results were similar.“Beyond cystic fibrosis, our platform can also be used for many other diseases, such as metabolic alkalosis, Addison’s disease,and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
All of those diseases display abnormal concentrations of chloride in the urine,serum or cerebral spinal fluid,” Yang said. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, “Cystic fibrosis is a common genetic disease within the white population inthe United States. The disease occurs in 1 in 2,500 to 3,500 white newborns. Cystic fibrosis is less common in other ethnicgroups, affecting about 1 in 17,000 African-Americans and 1 in 31,000 Asian Americans.”Robert Vender, M.D., a pulmonary specialist at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center who treats cysticfibrosis patients, says,
“According to recommendations from the CF Foundation (Bethesda, MD) all patients undergoing evaluation forpossible diagnosis of CF should have sweat testing performed.
To date, measurements of sweat chloride (mmol/L) areonly used for diagnostic purposes. However given the recent scientific and medical advances in CF patient directedtherapy and the development and FDA approval of therapies specifically designed to modify cystic fibrosis transmembraneconductance regulator (CFTR) protein function, serial measurements of sweat chloride may have potential as a therapeutic surrogate indicator of drug effect and is currently measured in many pharmaceutical industry sponsored studies as aresponse to these novel treatments. The link between the surrogate marker of sweat chloride and actual objective clinicaloutcomes such as improved lung function still remains to be determined.”Lead author Jimin Kim, a graduate student in Yang’s lab, says,
“Our citrate-based platform for designing fluorescentsensors provide us with great versatility in tailoring sensors to specific applications. We hope to produce more sensorswith interesting applications in the near future.”Also contributing to this work are Yang’s former postdoctoral fellow Dr. Zhiwei Xie and Michael Creer, M.D., a professorin the Penn State College of Medicine and chief of clinical pathology along with his colleague,Chris Pederson, who verified the results in clinical laboratory, and the previouslymentioned professor of electrical engineering, Zhiwen Liu.
This work was supported in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation Article Source: Lab Manager Penn State Materials Research Institute
11 October 2016
