Point-of-care device prototype for the detection, quantification and monitoring of S100B as a biomarker for diagnosis and prediction of severity of traumatic brain injury

Abstract

The early diagnosis of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is crucial to prevent chronic neuronal injuries and the patient's death. TBI diagnostic techniques demand the use of facilities, equipment, complex procedures, and specialized personnel, resources which are generally not available and require more than 24 hours to generate an adequate diagnosis of TBI and formulate a treatment. Initially, this work describes the development of a microfluidic paper-based analytical device for blood plasma separation to detect and quantify the S100B biomarker found on peripheral whole blood samples. The proposed device provides a simpler manufacturing protocol than previous BPS devices found on the literature, with reduced fabrication times and the ability to separate plasma for the detection of the S100B biomarker using ELISA. This work also describes the development of an electrochemical immunosensor to quantify S100B by using cysteamine to immobilize anti-S100B monoclonal antibodies onto interdigitated gold electrodes. By single frequency analysis, a faster detection was obtained to find surface capacitance change, an attribute that could be employed for performing non-faradaic electrochemical measurements. Finally, this work describes the development of an open-source, wireless, smartphone-controlled, portable potentiostat for electrochemical detection of the S100B protein. The modularity of the proposed potentiostat allows easy component changes according to the application while the use of minimal, easy acquirable opensource hardware and software provides a framework for facilitating EIS analysis for similar applications. For the above reasons, this work provides relevant contributions to the state-of-the-art of technologies for early TBI detection and diagnosis.