Portable Laboratory Platform With Electrochemical Biosensors for Immunodiagnostic of Hepatitis C Virus

This paper presents a portable laboratory platform (PLP) with electrochemical amperometric biosensors for the detection of hepatitis C virus (HCV). This PLP is composed by a controller unit, a Bluetooth module to provide communication with mobile devices, and a potentiostat circuit to perform cyclic voltammetry. The Bluetooth communication allows the mobile devices to set up the parameters, e.g., a cycling voltage in the range ±1.5 V, a scan rate in the range 5-1000 mV -1 with a step potential of 2.318 mV, and up to 4000 number of scan cycles. The electrochemical sensors were functionalized with cystamine (C 4 H 12 N 2 S 2 ) and glutaraldehyde (C 5 H 8 O 2 ) to make the covalent binding with the recombinant core-HCV protein. The experimental results have revealed a positive detection of HCV, using a redox solution of 5 mmol.L -1 of potassium ferrocyanide (K 3 Fe(CN) 6 ) on 0.1 mol.L -1 of phosphate-buffered saline (PBS). The sensitivity of the immunosensor was established at the concentration of 1 ng.μL -1 of the anti-core-HCV IgG class antibody. This PLP has a plug-and-play connection for the biosensors, and at the same time, it offers good ergonomy with easy operation due to its low dimensions (115 mm × 75 mm × 30 mm). This PLP presents a power consumption of 280.5 mW when supplied with a 3.3-V voltage source. This consumption was measured in the worst operation case, e.g., with the Bluetooth working, resulting in an average battery life of 195 min.