Portable Kit for Identification and Detection of Drugs in Human Urine Using Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

Abstract

A portable kit was demonstrated for rapid and reliable surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) detection of drugs in human urine. This kit contains two sealed reagent tubes, a packet of standardized SERS substrates, and a mini Raman device. A 3 min pretreatment for separating amphetamines from human urine was developed with an extraction rate of >80% examined by ultraperformance liquid chromatography (UPLC). Simultaneously, highly reproducible two-dimensional (2D) gold nanorod (GNR) arrays were assembled by the use of methoxymercaptopoly(ethylene glycol) (mPEG-SH) capping. Thirty batches of GNR arrays produced the 1001 cm(-1) intensity of methamphetamine (MA) molecules with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of 7.9%, and a 21 × 21 μm(2) area mapping on a 2D GNR array produced a statistical RSD of <10%, implying an excellent reproducibility and uniformity. The detection limit of amphetamines in human urine was at least 0.1 ppm. Moreover, the portable kit was successfully used for detecting MA, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), and methcathinone (MC) in 30 volunteers' urine samples with various clinical natures, and the dual-analyte detection of MA and MDMA implied a good capability of multiplex analysis. UPLC examination and the SERS recovery test clearly indicated that our pretreatment procedure was sufficient to lower the high background signals caused by complex components in urine and demonstrated the practicability and the resistance to false positives, which is a vital problem for law enforcement applications. The excellent performance of our portable kit promises a great prospective toward a rapid, reliable, and on-spot analyzer, especially for public safety and healthcare.

Detection of newly emerging psychoactive substances using Raman spectroscopy and chemometrics

“…Pre-processed Raman spectra were initially critically assessed using PCA, a multivariate technique that has previously been employed in the analysis of spectroscopic data. 16,[30][31][32] For this study, the NIPALS (Non-linear Iterative Projections by Alternating Least Squares) algorithm was implemented in the Unscrambler X 10.4 soware (CAMO, Oslo, Norway). Each generated model was full crossed validated (one sample per segment).…”

Fabrication of cube-like Fe3O4@SiO2@Ag nanocomposites with high SERS activity and their application in pesticide detection

“…Since the discovery of (SERS) in 1974 (Fleischmann et al 1974), it has aroused intense interest due to its high sensitivity and specificity in the detection of analytes (Su et al 2012;Liu et al 2014;Han et al 2015). The enormous SERS enhancement effect has enabled this technology to be widely applied in biology, medicine pharmacy, environmental monitoring, national security and other fields over the decades (Ye et al 2012;Zong et al 2012;Yang et al 2014;Wang et al 2014a).…”

Precision Target Guide Strategy for Applying SERS into Environmental Monitoring

“…For example, the PVA hydrogel-based substrate was applied into the trace antibiotics detection form the real polluted water with portable Raman spectrometer [45]. Recently, a portable SERS kit was demonstrated for rapid and reliable detection of trace drugs from environmental samples [90]. The whole detection procedure included a 3-min pretreatment for target extraction and a handheld Raman detection with highly reproducible assembled gold nanorod array as substrate (the sample preparation and detection process are shown in Figure 7a).…”

“…The whole detection procedure included a 3-min pretreatment for target extraction and a handheld Raman detection with highly reproducible assembled gold nanorod array as substrate (the sample preparation and detection process are shown in Figure 7a). The portable kit was successfully used for detecting methamphetamine, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine and methcathinone from real urine samples, showing great prospective toward public safety and healthcare [90]. …”