Robust structural color beads by self-adhesion amorphous colloidal particles for detection of cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers

Abstract

Analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers plays a crucial role in prediction and diagnosis of physiological function of brain and neurological diseases. However, due to the lack of extraction volume, especially for mice, it is very difficult to realize multiple biomarkers analysis from the CSF extracted only once. Thus, a novel method with the ability to multiplex analyze mice CSF biomarkers are still anticipated. Here, we proposed a kind of amorphous photonic structure (APS) barcodes using for the multiplex analysis of mice CSF biomarkers. These barcodes were fabricated by assembling easy-to-operated partially adherent polydopamine coated SiO2 nanoparticles (SiO2@PDA NPs), which were derived from a droplet-based microfluidic approach. Owing to adhesion, melanin-like and “active” functional groups of PDA, the obtained APS beads present pigment-like color, robust structure and “active” surface. Moreover, the APS beads possessed close to 13 times coding signal area than the previous spectral coded photonic crystal beads. Besides, through Michael reaction, the APS beads could readily graft the needed biomoleculars. Finally, establishing the animal model of sepsis related encephalopathy and extracting trace amount of CSF from rats’ cisterna magna, three inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6) could be relatively accurate analysis simultaneously using three colored APS beads as barcode carries. These results indicated that the APS barcodes are promising for screening and monitoring many inflammatory related neurological diseases on mice models.