Development and Characterization of a Self-Referencing Glutamate-Selective Micro-Biosensor

Bogorff et al develop a noninvasive, real time micro-biosensor that will quantitatively measure glutamate release and uptake by single cells. The researchers demonstrate that glutamate-selective electrodes based on a redox polymer hydrogel system can be minimized sufficiently to permit detection of glutamate. They also show that the response time of these electrodes is short enough that they can be used in a self-referencing mode, which is useful for enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio for measuring slowly changing glutamate gradients.