An array-based electrochemical magneto-immunosensor for early neonatal sepsis diagnostic: Fast and accurate determination of C-reactive protein in whole blood and plasma samples

Abstract

An array-based electrochemical magneto-immunosensor (a-EMI) constituted by eight screen-printed carbon electrodes is proposed for the determination of C-reactive protein (CRP). Remarkably, the analytical usefulness of the approach was demonstrated not only by analyzing whole blood samples, but plasma ones from newborns with suspicion of sepsis, which sample volume is hardly available. The a-EIM enabled the accurate determination of CRP in these unique samples (Er < 3%) with excellent intra (CV<4%, n=8) and inter-assays (CV<9%, n=8) precision, using only 5 µL of clinical sample, covering the sepsis diagnostic range and employing only 15 min for total assay. The electrode array enabled to work with up to 8 tailored dilutions simultaneously accordingly to the CRP clinical diagnostic range. It constitutes by itself a valuable advantage for speed and reliability improvements in the sample analysis and further sepsis diagnosis. These results non-only highly met the clinical needs for sepsis newborns diagnosis, but they opened new perspectives in low volumes-based diagnostics.