Abstract
The multifaceted key roles of cytokines in immunity and inflammatory processes have led to a high clinical interest for the determination of these biomolecules to be used as a tool in the diagnosis, prognosis, monitoring and treatment of several diseases of great current relevance (autoimmune, neurodegenerative, cardiac, viral and cancer diseases, hypercholesterolemia and diabetes). Therefore, the rapid and accurate determination of cytokine biomarkers in body fluids, cells and tissues has attracted considerable attention. However, many currently available techniques used for this purpose, although sensitive and selective, require expensive equipment and advanced human skills and do not meet the demands of today’s clinic in terms of test time, simplicity and point-of-care applicability. In the course of ongoing pursuit of new analytical methodologies, electrochemical biosensing is steadily gaining ground as a strategy suitable to develop simple, low-cost methods, with the ability for multiplexed and multiomics determinations in a short time and requiring a small amount of sample. This review article puts forward electrochemical biosensing methods reported in the last five years for the determination of cytokines, summarizes recent developments and trends through a comprehensive discussion of selected strategies, and highlights the challenges to solve in this field. Considering the key role demonstrated in the last years by different materials (with nano or micrometric size and with or without magnetic properties), in the design of analytical performance-enhanced electrochemical biosensing strategies, special attention is paid to the methods exploiting these approaches.
Highlights
Cytokines are soluble low-molecular-weight proteins secreted by cells responsible for regulation of host defense, tissue homeostasis, cell-to-cell communication, and inflammatory reactions
Considering this background, this review provides an overview of the state of the art, the latest advances, the potential and the versatility that electrochemical biosensing offers for the determination of cytokines
The pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokine (TNF-α and ILs) levels are considered clinically relevant for the detection of heart failure (HF) and organ biocompatibility in patients with implanted left ventricle-assisted devices, as well as for the follow-up of chronic HF patients, where the higher circulating levels correlate with the severity of the disease [13,14]
Summary
Cytokines are soluble low-molecular-weight proteins secreted by cells (both immune and non-immune) responsible for regulation of host defense, tissue homeostasis, cell-to-cell communication, and inflammatory reactions. This, together with the current demands of society and clinic for simple, affordable, short-time testing and application protocols at the point of care, makes it necessary to develop methodologies alternative to those currently available, which, sensitive and selective, are not able to fully respond such needs. In this context, the great progress experienced by electrochemical biosensing in the determination of clinically relevant biomarkers (including cytokines), assisted by the use of different materials and attractive chemistries, leads one to think that things are going in the right direction. The following sections discuss the considered relevant aspects of this family of proteins, the conventional methods versus the electrochemical biosensing strategies reported for their determination in the past five years and the challenges to be faced in future perspectives
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