Blood sampling is painful and invasive, plus it only tells you what's going on in the patient's body right when the sample is taken. So, how about this? Permanent skin grafts that glow green when specific biomarker chemicals are present in the bloodstream.
Currently being developed by scientists at Tokyo City University and The University of Tokyo, the technology isn't necessarily aimed at use in human patients. It could also find use in research, such as in lab-trial animals that aren't able to verbally express what symptoms they're experiencing.
The basic idea is that when bloodstream-borne chemicals are present in a given part of the body – chemicals such as proteins that indicate inflammation, for instance – a skin graft in that area will respond by fluorescing. No intrusive blood samples will need to be taken, and the fluorescence signal will continue for as long as the inflammation lasts.
For their study, the scientists created a skin graft that incorporated human epidermal stem cells. Those stem cells were genetically engineered to grow into skin cells that respond to inflammatory signaling by expressing enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP). In other words, when exposed to inflammation-associated proteins, the skin cells visibly glow green.
The graft was integrated into the natural host skin of lab mice, beneath which inflammation was subsequently induced. Not only did the engineered skin respond by fluorescing green, but it proceeded to do so for 200 days as the engineered stem cells continuously regenerated the epidermis.
Additionally, while the initial tests involved the monitoring of inflammation, the researchers believe that the technology could ultimately be utilized to monitor other symptoms by detecting other biomarkers.
“Unlike conventional devices that require power sources or periodic replacement, this system is biologically maintained by the body itself,” says Prof. Shoji Takeuchi of The University of Tokyo.
A paper on the study – which also involved collaborators from RIKEN and Canon Medical Systems Co. – was recently published in the journal Nature Communications.
Source: The University of Tokyo
