Colorimetric Nanoplasmonics to Spot Hyperglycemia From Saliva

Donati, Paolo; Pomili, Tania; Boselli, Luca; Pompa, Pier P.

Early diagnostics and point-of-care (POC) devices can save people’s lives or drastically improve their quality. In particular, millions of diabetic patients worldwide benefit from POC devices for frequent self-monitoring of blood glucose. Yet, this still involves invasive sampling processes, which are quite discomforting for frequent measurements, or implantable devices dedicated to selected chronic patients, thus precluding large-scale monitoring of the globally increasing diabetic disorders. Here, we report a non-invasive colorimetric sensing platform to identify hyperglycemia from saliva. We designed plasmonic multibranched gold nanostructures, able to rapidly change their shape and color (naked-eye detection) in the presence of hyperglycemic conditions. This “reshaping approach” provides a fast visual response and high sensitivity, overcoming common detection issues related to signal (color intensity) losses and bio-matrix interferences. Notably, optimal performances of the assay were achieved in real biological samples, where the biomolecular environment was found to play a key role. Finally, we developed a dipstick prototype as a rapid home-testing kit.