An aptamer-guided flow-cytometric biosensor for simultaneous sizing and polymer identification of nanoplastics
Biosensors and Bioelectronics, cilt.313, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 313
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.bios.2026.119167
- Dergi Adı: Biosensors and Bioelectronics
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, BIOSIS, Chemical Abstracts Core, Chimica, Compendex, EMBASE, INSPEC, MEDLINE, Academic Search Ultimate (EBSCO), Engineering Source (EBSCO)
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Aptamer biosensor, Cell-SELEX, DNA aptamers, Flow cytometry, Nanoplastics, Violet side scatter
- Gazi Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
Nanoplastics are an emerging class of environmental contaminants whose analysis is limited by the difficulty of resolving both particle size and polymer identity at the submicrometre scale in a single high-throughput measurement. Here, a dual-parameter flow-cytometric biosensor was developed that combined polymer-selective DNA aptamers with violet side scatter (VSSC; 405 nm) to provide single-acquisition particle-size and polymer-identity readouts for nanoplastic targets. Polymer-specific aptamers against up to one-year sunlight equivalent photoaged polystyrene (PS), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) nanoplastics were obtained by a Cell-SELEX procedure with counter-selection and were characterised by fluorescence saturation binding, giving apparent dissociation constants ( K D) of 1.19–9.27 μg mL−1. Implemented on a CytoFLEX platform, the biosensor resolved polystyrene calibration beads down to ∼100 nm, below the practical cut-off of conventional 488 nm side scatter, and assigned polymer identity within the same VSSC window. A count-based calibration yielded limits of detection of 0.038–0.165 events μL−1 (≈40–200 particles mL−1), a polymer-independent figure of merit that was insensitive to fragment density or weathering state. Polymer-specific fluorescein (FITC)-channel-positive populations were retained in spiked ultrapure, tap, sea, and lake water matrices, with only modest matrix-dependent fluorescence attenuation that did not affect per-event polymer classification. The approach provided a potentially transferable biosensor architecture for nanoscale-particle analysis and was compatible with existing flow-cytometry data-analysis pipelines; adaptation to field-portable cytometers remains to be demonstrated.