An Electrochemiluminescence Microchip For Highly Sensitive Point-of-Care Testing Of Multiple Acute Myocardial Infarction Biomarkers

Abstract

Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is characterized by its sudden onset, concealment, high recurrence rate, and strong mortality rate. Utilizing point-of-care testing (POCT) method for the rapid, accurate, and timely detection of various AMI markers can effectively improve patients’ survival rates. Therefore, we developed an electrochemiluminescence (ECL)-based microfluidic device for simultaneous detection of three AMI biomarkers in one run. Specific aptamer probes assembled working electrode array was embedded in the microfluidic chip, forming four detection units. A two-electrode system in each unit was utilized to provide stable transient potential for initiating light emission. Versatile Ru(bpy)32+ labeled specific antibodies as ECL reporters were applied to quantify the corresponding target, respectively. With the aid of a custom-built photomultiplier tube-based ECL measurement instrument, cTnI, Myo, and CK-MB in one sample can be detected within 20 min. This microchip reached astonishingly low detection limit of 0.25 pg/mL, 0.05 pg/mL, and 5 pg/mL for cTnI, Myo, and CK-MB, in a wide linear range of 1 pg/mL-1 μg/mL, 0.1 pg/mL-10 ng/mL, and 10 pg/mL-1 μg/mL, respectively. Furthermore, our microchip design consisted of three target sensors and a negative control unit, which enabled highly sensitive, specific, and reliable detection of AMI biomarkers in serum samples without any interference or cross-talk. The platform synergized high sensitivity of ECL with the multiplexing of microfluidic chip, thereby holding tremendous potential for application in POCT for AMI.

Note:
Funding declaration: This work was financially supported by the grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 62201300, No. 82273681). This study was also supported by the special research funding from the Marine Biotechnology and Marine Engineering Discipline Group in Ningbo University and the Open Research Project of the State Key Laboratory of Industrial Control Technology, Zhejiang University, China (No. ICT2022B09).

Conflict of Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Ethical Approval: This study protocol was approved by the Ethics Review Committee of the Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University (No. 2022-K057-01)

Keywords: Electrochemiluminescence (ECL), point-of-care testing (POCT), microfluidic chip, acute Myocardial infarction (AMI), multiple detection