Nanoparticle-based paper sensor for thiols evaluation in human skin

A new sensitive non-invasive gold nanoparticle-based sensor that enables to detect thiols in the human skin has been developed. The detection procedure implied the assessment of the color change of a paper sensor resulting from aggregation of gold nanoparticles caused by thiols. The ratio of the intensity of the photo image blue channel vs the red one (in units of RGB coloration) served as analytical response. The main thiol in the skin is glutathione, therefore, it was used as model biothiol and spiking substance. The range of linearity for glutathione was 8–75 µM, the detection limit was 6.9 µM. RSD≤7% is for inter-day determination of 10 μM glutathione and RSD≤12% is the intra-day value. The recovery of 5 µM and 10 µM of glutathione was evaluated by applying solution, containing thiol-spikes, on skin. The results varied in the range 77–138%. A hundred-fold excess of serine, alanine, histidine, threonine, creatinine, urea, and ammonia; a ten-fold excess of glycine, proline, leucine, isoleucine, phenylalanine, asparagine; and a five-fold excess of valine, tryptophan, tyrosine, and uric acid, which can be extracted from the skin and is contained in the test matrix, have no significant effect on 10 µM glutathione signal. Thiols level in the skin of volunteers (21–65 years old, men and women) detected with the use of a proposed non-invasive sensor was 11.6–47.5 µM.