Plastibodies for multiplexed detection and sorting of microplastic particles in high-throughput.

Sensitive high-throughput analytic methodologies are needed to quantify microplastic particles (MPs) and thereby enable routine monitoring of MPs to ultimately secure animal, human, and environmental health. Here we report a multiplexed analytical and flow cytometry-based high-throughput methodology to quantify MPs in aqueous suspensions. The developed analytic MPs-quantification platform provides a sensitive as well as high-throughput detection of MPs that relies on the material binding peptide Liquid Chromatography Peak I (LCI) conjugated to Alexa-fluorophores (LCI _F16C -AF488, LCI _F16C -AF594, and LCI _F16C -AF647). These fluorescent material-binding peptides (also termed plastibodies) were used to fluorescently label polystyrene MPs, whereas Alexa-fluorophores alone exhibited a negligible background fluorescence. Mixtures of polystyrene MPs that varied in size (500 nm to 5 μm) and varied in labeled populations were analyzed and sorted into distinct populations reaching sorting efficiencies >90 % for 1 × 10 ⁶ sorted events. Finally, a multiplexed quantification and sorting with up to three plastibodies was successfully achieved to validate that the combination of plastibodies and flow cytometry is a powerful and generally applicable methodology for multiplexed analysis, quantification, and sorting of microplastic particles.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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