Insights into the fascinating molecular world of biological processes are crucial for understanding diseases, developing diagnostics, and effective therapeutics. These processes are complex as they involve interactions between four major classes of biomolecules, i.e., proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and lipids, which makes it important to be able to discriminate between all these different biomolecular species. In this work, a deep learning‐augmented, chemically‐specific nanoplasmonic technique that enables such a feat in a label‐free manner to not disrupt native processes is presented. The method uses a highly sensitive multiresonant plasmonic metasurface in a microfluidic device, which enhances infrared absorption across a broadband mid‐IR spectrum and in water, despite its strongly overlapping absorption bands. The real‐time format of the optofluidic method enables the collection of a vast amount of spectrotemporal data, which allows the construction of a deep neural network to discriminate accurately between all major classes of biomolecules. The capabilities of the new method are demonstrated by monitoring of a multistep bioassay containing sucrose‐ and nucleotides‐loaded liposomes interacting with a small, lipid membrane‐perforating peptide. It is envisioned that the presented technology will impact the fields of biology, bioanalytics, and pharmacology from fundamental research and disease diagnostics to drug development.
Diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders (NDDs) including Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease is challenging owing to the lack of tools to detect preclinical biomarkers. The misfolding of proteins into oligomeric and fibrillar aggregates plays an important role in the development and progression of NDDs, thus underscoring the need for structural biomarker–based diagnostics. We developed an immunoassay-coupled nanoplasmonic infrared metasurface sensor that detects proteins linked to NDDs, such as alpha-synuclein, with specificity and differentiates the distinct structural species using their unique absorption signatures. We augmented the sensor with an artificial neural network enabling unprecedented quantitative prediction of oligomeric and fibrillar protein aggregates in their mixture. The microfluidic integrated sensor can retrieve time-resolved absorbance fingerprints in the presence of a complex biomatrix and is capable of multiplexing for the simultaneous monitoring of multiple pathology-associated biomarkers. Thus, our sensor is a promising candidate for the clinical diagnosis of NDDs, disease monitoring, and evaluation of novel therapies.
Metasurfaces have outstanding light‐manipulation capabilities at the nanoscale, which enables functions beyond that which is otherwise seen in nature. In article number 2006054, Hatice Altug and co‐workers augment highly sensitive, broadband mid‐IR metasurfaces with artificial intelligence to introduce a spectroscopic biosensor that enables label‐free and in situ monitoring of biomolecules from all major classes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.