Development of a novel immunochromatographic electrochemical biosensor(IEB) is proposed for simultaneous quantitation of Troponin-I, Myoglobin and CK-MB, which have been reported to be important indexes in the diagnosis of myocardial infraction. Such biosensor using electrochemical detectors will avoid optical interference in the current immunoassays, and will provide more accuracy and sensitivity to rapidly quantify analytes. Our preliminary results using the proposed methodology for quantitation of myoglobin demonstrated several advantages over the current existed method such as high sensitivity, reproducibility, rapidity and convenience in use. We propose to further optimize this novel method for simultaneous quantitation of the above mentioned cardiac bio-markers, and develop a portable biosensor in point-of-care application. The proposed biosensor will consist of an immunochromatographic strip which produces immuno-complexes of these cardiac markers with their specific antibodies labeled with different metal ions and an electrochemical detector which quantifies the amounts of these metal ions in the complex. Design of the IEB will be carefully developed, and simultaneous quantitation of metal ions by the electrode in the test strips will also be evaluated and optimized. Such biosensor will provide essential information for proper clinical decision, and thus greatly improve the quality of coronary care.
About 16 million cardiac examinations were conducted annually in the United States. A method with rapidity, high specificity and sensitivity, clinical accuracy is urgent to be developed for simultaneous quantitation of the cardiac markers in coronary care. The proposed immunochromatographic electrochemical biosensor is expected to provide these characteristics of myocardial infarction diagnosis at emergency room or coronary care units. Such biosensor will provide a low cost, highly efficient, clinically accurate and simple operation without technical training, and thus will have additional potential in commercial applications.
