Continuous Detection of Increasing Concentrations of Thrombin Employing a Label-Free Photonic Crystal Aptasensor

[EN] Thrombin generation is a complex and finely regulated pathway that provokes dynamical changes of thrombin concentration in blood when a vascular injury occurs. In order to characterize the initiation phase of such process, when thrombin concentration is in the nM range, a label-free optical aptasensor is proposed here. This aptasensor combines a 1D photonic crystal structure consisting of a silicon corrugated waveguide with thrombin binding aptamers on its surface as bioreceptors. As a result, this aptasensor has been demonstrated to specifically detect thrombin concentrations ranging from 270 pM to 27 nM with an estimated detection limit of 33.5 pM and a response time of ~2 min. Furthermore, it has also been demonstrated that this aptasensor is able to continuously respond to consecutive increasing concentrations of thrombin and to detect binding events as they occur. All these features make this aptasensor a good candidate to continuously study how thrombin concentration progressively increases during the initiation phase of the coagulation cascade. This research was supported by a co-financed action by the European Union through the operational program of the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) of the Valencian Community 2014-2020, the Generalitat Valenciana through the PROMETEO project AVANTI/2019/123 and by Universitat Politecnica de Valencia through grants PAID-01-17 and the project OCUSENSOR. Martinez-Perez, P.; Gómez-Gómez, MI.; Ivanova-Angelova, T.; Griol Barres, A.; Hurtado Montañés, J.; Bellieres, LC.; García-Rupérez, J. (2020). Continuous Detection of Increasing Concentrations of Thrombin Employing a Label-Free Photonic Crystal Aptasensor. Micromachines. 11(5):1-12. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11050464 CRAWLEY, J. T. B., ZANARDELLI, S., CHION, C. K. N. K., & LANE, D. A. (2007). The central role of thrombin in hemostasis. Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis, 5, 95-101. doi:10.1111/j.1538-7836.2007.02500.x Mann, K. G., Brummel, K., & Butenas, S. (2003). What is all that thrombin for? Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis, 1(7), 1504-1514. doi:10.1046/j.1538-7836.2003.00298.x Wolberg, A. S., & Campbell, R. A. (2008). Thrombin generation, fibrin clot formation and hemostasis. Transfusion and Apheresis Science, 38(1), 15-23. doi:10.1016/j.transci.2007.12.005 Brummel, K. E., Paradis, S. G., Butenas, S., & Mann, K. G. (2002). Thrombin functions during tissue factor–induced blood coagulation. Blood, 100(1), 148-152. doi:10.1182/blood.v100.1