(Springer, 2023) Moro, G.; Chiavaioli, Francesco; Zubiate Orzanco, Pablo; Del Villar, Ignacio; Baldini, Francesco; De Wael, K.; Moretto, L. M.; Giannetti, Ambra; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoa eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritza; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
The widespread industrial use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances
(PFAS) have engendered the release of these manmade chemicals in the environment with harmful effects on animal and human health. To monitor PFAS
levels in drinking waters, sensitive and versatile sensing strategies are urgently
required. Since many perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids, such as perfluorooctanoic
acid (PFOA), are fatty acid-mimic, delipidated human serum albumin (HSA) can
be applied as biorecognition element for the design of novel PFAS sensors. Here,
two albumin-based biosensing strategies are described and compared: i) a lossy
mode resonance (LMR) fiber optic one and ii) an impedimetric portable one developed on screen-printed electrodes. In both biosensing platforms, HSA was covalently immobilized via EDC/NHS chemistry using the carboxylic moieties of the
polymeric layers previously deposited at the transducer surface. Afterwards, the
conformational changes related to the formation of HSA/PFOA complex were
followed considering: i) the LMR spectral shifts for the optical platform and ii)
the changes of absolute impedance for the impedimetric one. The performance
and future developments of both PFOA biosensors are discussed.
