Micropatch‐arrayed pads for non‐invasive spatial and temporal profiling of topical drugs on skin surface

Abstract

Micropatch-arrayed pads (MAPAs) are presented as a facile and sensitive sampling method for spatial profiling of topical agents adsorbed on the surface of skin. MAPAs are 28 × 28 mm sized pieces of polytetrafluoroethylene containing plurality of cavities filled with agarose hydrogel. They are affixed onto skin for 10 min with the purpose to collect drugs applied topically. Polar compounds are absorbed by the hydrogel micropatches. The probes are subsequently scanned by an automated nanospray desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry system operated in the tapping dual-polarity mode. When the liquid junction gets into contact with every micropatch, polar compounds absorbed in the hydrogel matrix are desorbed and transferred to the ion source. A 3D-printed interface prevents evaporation of hydrogel micropatches assuring good reproducibility and sensitivity. MAPAs have been applied to follow dispersion of topical drugs applied to human skin in vivo and to porcine skin ex vivo, in the form of self-adhesive patches. Spatiotemporal characteristics of the drug dispersion process have been revealed using this non-invasive test. Differences between drug dispersion in vivo and ex vivo could be observed. We envision that MAPAs can be used to investigate spatiotemporal kinetics of various topical agents utilized in medical treatment.

Hydrogel Micropatch and Mass Spectrometry–Assisted Screening for Psoriasis-Related Skin Metabolites

“…Several methods for collecting small amounts of skin excretions have been proposed (cotton swab, wipe, skinpatch, and syringe), but all of them involve major inconveniences (13 ). Therefore, it would be helpful to develop and implement analytical methods for sampling and analyzing skin excretions that circumvent chromatographic separations (14,15 ). We hypothesized that the recently developed hydrogel micropatch method (14 ) could enable the sampling of tiny amounts of skin excretions from the metabolically dysregulated skin of psoriatic patients.…”

Leveraging 3D printing to enhance mass spectrometry: A review

“…6C) [37,103]. Similarly, a 3D-printed box was created to house a DESI stage, which included an inlet for water vapor, to reduce evaporation of sample from the DESI plate [106]. Housing and elements of a gel electrophoresis system that could be coupled to MS were developed as well, using FDM printing for larger parts, such as the housing, and SLA for parts that required higher reproducibility/precision, such as a gel tube [61].…”

Printed Organic Transistor-based Biosensors for Non-invasive Sweat Analysis

“…This sweat component sampling method has also been used for recent proteomic and metabolomic analyses. [110][111][112] Tsunoda et al 113 suggested a clear correlation between extracted sweat and plasma component levels.…”

“…Therefore, the extracted sweat components were quantified using a separately prepared highly sensitive analytical system, such as liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. [108][109][110][111][112][113] These analytical systems are not compatible with daily healthcare applications due to its size, cost, and requirement of high technical skill. For daily healthcare, this sweat extraction technique should be combined with portable and highly sensitive biosensors for on-site detection of the extracted low level of sweat components.…”