A research team at the University of Freiburg has demonstrated for the first time in mammals that the concentration of antibiotics in the body can be determined using breath samples. A so-called multiplex chip was developed for this purpose, which enables the simultaneous measurement of several samples and different test substances. In future, the biosensor should enable personalized dosing of medication against infectious diseases on site. This should counteract the increasing emergence of resistant bacterial strains.
The sensor developed by the research group led by Dr. Can Dincer and H. Ceren Ates, FIT Freiburg Center for Interactive Materials and Bioinspired Technologies, and Prof. Dr. Wilfried Weber, Professor of Synthetic Biology and member of the speaker team of the Cluster of Excellence Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies, is based on synthetic proteins that react to antibiotics. In an electrochemical cell, the changes caused by antibiotics generate a change in the current.
The microfluidic biosensor carries proteins attached to a polymer film that recognize so-called beta-lactam antibiotics such as penicillin. The antibiotic tested in the sample and an enzyme-coupled beta-lactam compete for the binding of these bacterial proteins. This competition creates a change in current like in a battery: the more antibiotic is present in the sample, the less enzyme product is produced.
Source: University of Freiburg
Original publication: Ates, H.C., Mohsenin, H., Wenzel, C., Glatz, R., Wagner, H.J., Bruch, R., Höfflin, N., Spassov, S., Streicher, L., Lozano-Zahonero, S., Flamm, B., Trittler, R., Hug, M.J., Köhn, M., Schmidt, J., Schumann, S., Urban, G.A., Weber, W., Dincer, C. (2021): Biosensor-enabled multiplexed on-site therapeutic drug monitoring of antibiotics. In: Advanced Materials. DOI: 10.1002/adma.202104555
