Quantitative Assessment of Fungal Biomarkers in Clinical Samples via an Interface‐Modulated Optical Fiber Biosensor

Abstract

Invasive fungal infections pose a significant public health threat. The lack of precise and timely diagnosis is a primary factor contributing to the significant increase in patient mortality rates. Here, we report an interface‐modulated biosensor utilizing an optical fiber for quantitative analysis of fungal biomarkers at the early stage for point‐of‐care testing. By integrating surface refractive index modulation and plasmon enhancement, we successfully optimized the sensor to achieve the highest sensitivity in a directional response to the target analytes. As a result, we developed a compact fiber optic sensor with rapid response time, cost‐effectiveness, exceptional sensitivity, stability, and specificity. This sensor can successfully identify the biomarkers of specific pathogens from blood or other tissue specimens in animal models. It quantifies clinical blood samples with precision and effectively discriminates between negative and positive cases, thereby providing timely alerts to potential patients. It significantly reduces the detection time of fungal infection to only 30 minutes. Additionally, this approach exhibits remarkable stability and achieves a limit of detection three orders of magnitude lower than existing methods. It overcomes the limitations of existing detection methods, including a high rate of misdiagnosis, prolonged detection time, elevated costs, and the requirement for stringent laboratory conditions.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Recent research progress of selenotungstate-based biomolecular sensing materials

“…Electrochemical and fluorescent biosensors, with their advantages of high sensitivity, simplicity and operational ease, have emerged as indispensable tools in clinical diagnostics. 1–9 Antibodies/antigens, enzymes/substrates, or aptamer/aptamer-complementary elements are the important biorecognition elements in electrochemical and fluorescent biosensors because of their specific binding capabilities (Fig. 1).…”