Flexible Electrochemical Sensor for Interleukin-6: Toward Wearable Cytokine Monitoring
Moritz Ploner, Bajramshahe Shkodra, Antonio Altana, Mattia Petrelli, Anna Tagliaferri, D. Resnati, Paolo Lugli, Martina Aurora Costa Angeli, Luisa Petti
Abstract
The detection of cytokines, which are key proteins involved in immune system signaling, is of extreme importance for health monitoring. Among the various cytokines, interleukin-6 (IL-6) is particularly interesting to monitor, also considering that sweat IL-6 levels show a significant correlation with blood levels, in the range of pg/mL. Despite its importance, sensitive and wearable detection of IL-6 in sweat is still lagging behind. In this work, we fabricated and characterized a flexible screen-printed carbon-based three-electrode electrochemical sensor for IL-6 detection. The planar electrochemical sensor was first modified with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and then biofunctionalized with thiolated aptamers. The characterization via electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) demonstrated selective IL-6 detection in the range from 0.2 to 20 pg/mL in artificial sweat, perfectly covering the physiological range of interest. Our results suggest the potential integration of the developed flexible sensor into wearable devices for cytokine monitoring.