Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 5, 2026
08:22
Electrowetting-based Digital Microfluidics Platform for Automated Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay
Published on: February 23, 2020
Polyelectrolyte Biosensor Droplets Prepared from Uniform-Sized Liquid-Crystal Shell Templates
Ha-Neul Jang1, Soo-Young Park1
1Department of Polymer Science & Engineering, Polymeric Nano Materials Laboratory, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Republic of Korea.
ACS Sensors
|July 27, 2026
Summary
New poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) droplets immobilized with 3-aminophenylboronic acid (APBA) offer a simpler, more accurate nonenzymatic glucose sensing method. These PAAAPBA droplets show rapid, glucose-dependent size changes for reliable detection in blood and serum.
Area of Science:
- Biomaterials Science
- Analytical Chemistry
- Biosensor Technology
Background:
- Development of accurate and convenient glucose biosensors is crucial for diabetes management.
- Existing enzymatic glucose biosensors often face limitations such as enzyme instability and complex fabrication.
- Nonenzymatic glucose sensing offers a promising alternative for simplified biosensor design.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and evaluate poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) droplets immobilized with 3-aminophenylboronic acid (APBA) for nonenzymatic glucose sensing.
- To compare the performance of PAAAPBA droplets with PAA droplets immobilized with glucose oxidase (PAAGOx).
- To assess the suitability of PAAAPBA droplets for detecting glucose in biological samples like human blood and serum.
Main Methods:
- Fabrication of uniform-sized PAA droplets using solid-state liquid crystal shell templates and a simple hatching process.
- Immobilization of APBA onto PAA droplets via carbodiimide coupling.
- Treatment of PAAAPBA droplets with NaCl (PAAAPBA/Na) and PAAGOx droplets with NaOH (PAAGOx/Na).
- Monitoring droplet size changes in glucose solutions to determine sensing performance.
Main Results:
- PAAAPBA/Na droplets exhibited rapid shrinkage dependent on glucose concentration (Cg), with a detection limit of 0.624 mM and a linear range of 1-12 mM.
- PAAGOx/Na droplets showed a size reduction rate dependent on Cg, with a detection limit of 0.733 mM and a linear range of 1-10 mM.
- PAAAPBA/Na droplets demonstrated superior convenience and accuracy due to direct size-to-concentration correlation, unlike the rate-dependent PAAGOx/Na droplets.
Conclusions:
- Nonenzymatic PAAAPBA/Na droplet biosensors provide a highly accurate, stable, and sensitive method for glucose detection.
- The PAAAPBA/Na droplet sensor offers advantages in convenience and simplicity over enzymatic PAAGOx/Na droplet sensors.
- These PAAAPBA/Na droplets show significant potential for practical glucose monitoring in human blood and serum samples.
