Electrochemical On-site Amino Acids Detection of Maple Syrup Urine Disease Using Vertically Aligned Nickel Nanowires

In this work, vertically aligned nickel nanowires-based electrochemical sensors (v-NiNWs) for rapid detection of branched-chain amino acids for a non-invasive screening of maple syrup urine disease (MSUD), are proposed. v-NiNWs meet the required features for decentralized clinical diagnosis: easy to operate, fast sensor response and short total analysis times (5min), as well as low sample consumption (250ml). The analytical characteristics (for leucine as representative branched-chain amino acid in MSUD) such as detection limit (8M) and linear range (25-700M which includes as midpoint the amino acids cut-off of 250M) clearly showed the suitability of v-NiNWs as new and disposable analytical tool for rapid screening of branched-chain amino acids in MSUD because of their high capabilities for reliable differentiation between healthy and ill clinical sample profiles. In addition, intra and inter-electrodes repeatability were excellent with values of RSD4 and 9%, respectively (n=5). This approach opens novel avenues not only for ultrafast diagnosis of MSUD using miniaturized and even disposable devices but also for a future point-of-care testing; providing novel alternatives for on-site decentralized monitoring.