Development of a novel fluorophore for real-time biomonitoring system

Rapid in-field diagnosis is very important to prevent the outbreak of various infectious and contagious diseases. Highly sensitive and quantitative detection of diseases can be performed using fluorescent immunochemical assay with specific antigen-antibody binding and a good quality fluorophore. This can lead to the development of a small, portable, quantitative biosensor to transmit diagnostic results to a control center in order to systematically prevent disease outbreaks. In this study, we developed a novel fluorophore, coumarin-derived dendrimer, with high emission intensity, strong signal brightness, and high photostability. It is easily coupled with biomolecules and emits strong and stable fluorescence at 590 nm with excitation at 455 nm. Application to fluorescent immunochromatographic test (FICT) showed that the novel coumarin-derived dendrimer bioconjugate could detect antigens at amount as low as 0.1 ng. The clinical results and the spectral characteristics of the novel coumarin-derived dendrimer open, for the first time, the possibility of developing a cost/energy efficient LED-based portable quantitative biosensor for point-of-care (POC) disease diagnosis, which can permit real time monitoring (U-healthcare system) by a disease control center.