Analytical Sciences

A Dual Functional Cardiomyocyte-based Hybrid-biosensor for the Detection of Diarrhetic Shellfish Poisoning and Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning Toxins

Hongbo LI,*,** Xinwei WEI,* Chenlei GU,* Kaiqi SU,* Hao WAN,* Ning HU,*,*** and Ping WANG*,**

*Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Ministry of Education, Biosensor National Special Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China
**State Key Laboratory of Transducer Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200050, China
***Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, 02155, USA

Okadaic acid (OA) and saxitoxin (STX) are typical toxins of diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP) and paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), respectively, which are highly toxic marine toxins threatening human health and environmental safety. OA is a potent inhibitor of serine/threonine protein phosphatases that can cause cellular death, while STX is an inhibitor of sodium channel that can lead to neurological damage. In this work, a dual functional cardiomyocyte-based biosensor was proposed to detect DSP and PSP toxins by monitoring the viability and electrophysiology of cardiomyocytes. The results showed that the viability of cardiomyocytes was sensitive to the OA and STX, resulting in significant changes of the electrophysiological properties, including amplitude, firing rate and duration of the extracellular field potential (EFP). The detection limits of the hybrid-biosensor are as low as 7.16 ng/mL for OA and 5.19 ng/mL for STX. In summary, all of the results indicate that the dual functional cardiomyocyte-based hybrid-biosensor will be a promising and utility tool for shellfish toxin detection.

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