Towards the Design of an Acetone Breath Biosensor

Abstract

Acetone is one of the most abundant volatile organic compounds (VOC) in human breath and high acetone levels result in ketoacidosis. Many acetone sensors have been developed; however, many disadvantages are present; therefore, there is a need for a more specific, biologically friendly, and simpler biosensor for breath acetone detection for diabetics. This study outlines a procedure for isolation, purification, and characterization of NADPH-dependant carbonyl reductase enzyme for use in an amperometric acetone sensor. Carbonyl reductase was extracted from Saccharomyces pastorianus yeast cells and purified using column chromatography. Carbonyl reductase activity was evaluated using activity assays and was also studied electrochemically. Furthermore, this study outlines a procedure for a flow injection method used for detecting aqueous acetone in the presence of carbonyl reductase. Lastly, various immobilization techniques were tested in order to improve current response and the selectivity towards acetone.

Straightforward Synthesis and Evaluation of Polymeric Sensing Materials for Acetone Detection

“…Therefore, as shown in Table 1, researchers often choose to evaluate a material's selectivity toward acetone in the presence of several interferents. [18,20,23,24,27,28] Table 1 provides an overview of the literature for acetone detection with polymeric materials, but it also highlights the challenges and limitations associated with the materials studied to date. In general, the reported selectivity toward acetone is low in the presence of several different interferent gases (including methanol, [28,29] ethanol, [22,28] ammonium hydroxide, [28] and benzene [31] ).…”

“…For materials with higher selectivity, the polymers (and/or sensor preparation steps) are generally more complex. [23][24][25][26]28,31,32] Therefore, there seems to be a tradeoff between selectivity and simplicity of synthesis.…”

“…Therefore, as shown in Table 1 , researchers often choose to evaluate a material's selectivity toward acetone in the presence of several interferents. [ 18,20,23,24,27,28 ]…”

“…Table 1 provides an overview of the literature for acetone detection with polymeric materials, but it also highlights the challenges and limitations associated with the materials studied to date. In general, the reported selectivity toward acetone is low in the presence of several different interferent gases (including methanol, [ 28,29 ] ethanol, [ 22,28 ] ammonium hydroxide, [ 28 ] and benzene [ 31 ] ). For materials with higher selectivity, the polymers (and/or sensor preparation steps) are generally more complex.…”

“…Several groups have investigated the possibility of using metals and metal oxides as breath acetone sensors, with some success. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] There have also been several studies that involved polymeric sensing materials and sensing arrays (including these references [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] ), but there is still room for improvement. Polymeric sensing materials typically provide better selectivity than metals and metal oxides and have the added advantage of lower cost and customization (tailorability).…”