Piezo electric sensor for endocrine-disrupting chemicals using receptor-co-factor interaction

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Biotechnology
• Analytical Chemistry

Background:

• In vitro screening assays are crucial for assessing receptor-mediated activities in environmental samples.
• Identifying environmental chemicals that interact with the human estrogen receptor (hER) is vital for environmental and health risk assessment.
• Existing methods may require complex procedures or lack the sensitivity for large-scale screening.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel biosensor for detecting estrogenic compounds.
• To determine if environmental chemicals act as agonists or antagonists to the human estrogen receptor (hER).
• To establish a rapid and efficient screening tool for estrogenic activity.

Main Methods:

• Construction of a biosensor utilizing ligand-inducible interactions between hER and related proteins.
• Immobilization of his-tagged proteins on an Au-electrode via Ni(II)-mediated chemisorption.
• Utilizing a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) to detect resonance-frequency changes upon chemical binding.

Main Results:

• The biosensor demonstrated sensitivity to the association and dissociation of hER-related proteins.
• Frequency changes on the QCM electrode correlated with the presence of estrogenic compounds.
• The developed sensor successfully detected estrogenic activity in samples.

Conclusions:

• The developed biosensor is effective for identifying estrogenic compounds.
• This QCM-based sensor shows promise as a large-scale screening tool for environmental estrogenic activity.
• The technology facilitates the assessment of environmental chemicals' impact on the human estrogen receptor.