Chiral sensing of enantiomers with organic electrochemical transistors – CHIRA-SENSEO

Asymmetry is a fundamental quality leading often to chirality. Though most amino-acids are L-enantiomers, D-amino acids (D-AA) are present in mammals and humans and involved in vital mechanisms from neuronal function to glucose homeostasis. Alterations in their levels have been linked to major chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s or diabetes. Detailed knowledge on D-AA is lacking, as their detection is currently cumbersome, technically highly demanding and requires sample preparation thus precluding meaningful continuous monitoring.
Based on our expertise, we propose here a novel sensor for continuous monitoring, combining advantages of organic electrochemical transistors (OECT), such as low noise and good cell interfacing, with diastereomeric interactions between newly synthesized conducting polymer probes and analyte. Electropolymerization will provide elegant means to enhance detection limits and kinetics and to prepare multiparametric chips for concomitant detection of several enantiomers.
Our proposal addresses a fundamental problem, namely online enantiomer detection and quantification by sensors, a major bottleneck in general analytical procedures that also precludes understanding the physiological and biomedical importance of enantiomers in health and in disease. The proposed approach and resulting sensor is novel and may provide a major general breakthrough in analytics and in biomedicine.
Our objectives are to (i) develop novel chiral polymers (ii), to provide nanostructured sensors in (iii) a multiparametric enantioselective device and (iv) to obtain a proof-of-concept for the sensors in a complex environment and initial physiological/ pathophysiological investigation in a micro-organ, highly relevant in biomedicine.
The consortium combines expertise in polymer chemistry, electrochemistry and nanostructuration, physics and device development and biology/electrophysiology of a biological micro-organ model of major health importance (i.e. diabetes).