Tracking fluctuations of the cortisol level is important in understanding the body's endocrine response to stress stimuli. Traditional cortisol sensing relies on centralized laboratory settings, while wearable cortisol sensors are limited to slow and complex assays. Here, a touch‐based non‐invasive molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) electrochemical sensor for rapid, simple, and reliable stress‐free detection of sweat cortisol is described. The sensor readily measures fingertip sweat cortisol via highly selective binding to the cortisol‐imprinted electropolymerized polypyrrole coating. The MIP network is embedded with Prussian blue redox probes that offer direct electrical signaling of the binding event to realize sensitive label‐free amperometric detection. Using a highly permeable sweat‐wicking porous hydrogel, instantaneously secreted fingertip sweat can be conveniently and rapidly collected without any assistance. By eliminating time lags, such rapid (3.5 min) fingertip assay enables the capture of sharp variations in cortisol levels, compared to previous methods. Such advantages are demonstrated by tracking cortisol response in short cold‐pressor tests and throughout day‐long circadian rhythm, along with gold‐standard immunoassay validation. A stretchable epidermal MIP sensor is also described for directly tracking cortisol in exercise‐induced sweat. The rapid touch‐based cortisol sensor offers an attractive, accessible, stressless avenue for quantitative stress management.
Herein we propose a multiple signal amplification strategy designed for ultrasensitive electrochemical detection of glycoproteins. This approach introduces a new type of boronate-affinity sandwich assay (BASA), which was fabricated by using gold nanoparticles combined with reduced graphene oxide (AuNPs-GO) to modify sensing surface for accelerating electron transfer, the composite of molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) including 4-vinylphenylboronic acid (VPBA) for specific capturing glycoproteins, and SiO nanoparticles carried gold nanoparticles (SiO@Au) labeled with 6-ferrocenylhexanethiol (FcHT) and 4-mercaptophenylboronic acid (MPBA) (SiO@Au/FcHT/MPBA) as tracing tag for binding glycoprotein and generating electrochemical signal. As a sandwich-type sensing, the SiO@Au/FcHT/MPBA was captured by glycoprotein on the surface of imprinting film for further electrochemical detection in 0.1 M PBS (pH 7.4). Using horseradish peroxidase (HRP) as a model glycoprotein, the proposed approach exhibited a wide linear range from 1 pg/mL to 100 ng/mL, with a low detection limit of 0.57 pg/mL. To the best of our knowledge, this is first report of a multiple signal amplification approach based on boronate-affinity molecularly imprinted polymer and SiO@Au/FcHT/MPBA, exhibiting greatly enhanced sensitivity for glycoprotein detection. Furthermore, the newly constructed BASA based glycoprotein sensor demonstrated HRP detection in real sample, such as human serum, suggesting its promising prospects in clinical diagnostics.
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