Biomimetic PLGA sensor: proof of principle and application

Spoilage of products can mainly be attributed to microorganisms which "live on the product", i.e. which are able to utilize and/or metabolize components and/or molecules of the product. The objective of this work was to develop and optimize sensor prototypes indicating the quality of a product "in real time", i.e. at the time the consumer is looking at the product. The design of the presented sensors relates to optical phenomena, for example anomalous absorption and remission of light. The crucial point of the sensor prototypes is a layer sensitive to the analyte, a polymer degradable by enzymes produced by the respective microorganisms. After incubation of the sensor setup with contaminated products, the lytic enzymes released from decaying cell material change the thickness of the polymer layer and generate a colour change visible by the naked eye. Production of the sensor prototypes is very simple and inexpensive and they might be successfully integrated into product packaging.