Electrochemical immunosensors, EIs, are systems that combine the analytical power of electrochemical techniques and the high selectivity and specificity of antibodies in a solid phase immunoassay for target analyte. In EIs, the most used transducer platforms are screen printed electrodes, SPEs. Some characteristics of EIs are their low cost, portability for point of care testing (POCT) applications, high specificity and selectivity to the target molecule, low sample and reagent consumption and easy to use. Despite all these attractive features, still exist one to cover and it is the enhancement of the sensitivity of the EIs. In this review, an approach to understand how this can be achieved is presented. First, it is necessary to comprise thoroughly all the complex phenomena that happen simultaneously in the protein-surface interface when adsorption of the protein occurs. Physicochemical properties of the protein and the surface as well as the adsorption phenomena influence the sensitivity of the EIs. From this point, some strategies to suppress non-specific binding, NSB, of proteins onto electrode surfaces in order to improve the sensitivity of EIs are mentioned.
3D-printing is an open access manufacturing technology that facilitates prototyping of economical devices for scientific purposes. Coupled with the emergence of commercially available cost-efficient screen-printed electrodes (SPEs), 3D-printing has enabled the fabrication of cost-effective fluidic sensing platforms with removable/disposable electrodes. However, quantitative electrochemical detection of analytes in 3D-printed flow-cells integrated with SPEs is yet to be achieved. In this work, the successful implementation of a cost-effective 3D-printed-enabled fluidic electrochemical sensing platform (3DP-FESP) for the quantitative detection of dopamine (DA) in the presence of uric acid (UA), and ascorbic acid (AA) is demonstrated. The 3DP-FESP consists of a reversibly sealed 3D-printed flow-cell integrated with removable SPEs electrochemically activated to increase sensitivity towards DA. The flow-cell was fabricated through fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D-printing and Embedded SCAffold RemovinG Open Technology (ESCARGOT). The 3DP-FESP was characterized to determine its optimal flow rate and ensure enhancement of the quantitative performance of the SPEs under flow conditions. As a result, the performance of our 3DP-FESP (flow conditions) was better than only activated SPEs (stagnant conditions) for DA detection in the presence of interferents with LODs of 0.05 μM and 0.16 μM, respectively. This demonstrates the potential of our cost-effective 3DP-FESP for enhanced quantitative electroanalytical applications.
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