Love Acoustic Wave-Based Devices and Molecularly-Imprinted Polymers as Versatile Sensors for Electronic Nose or Tongue for Cancer Monitoring

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide and actual analytical techniques are restrictive in detecting it. Thus, there is still a challenge, as well as a need, for the development of quantitative non-invasive tools for the diagnosis of cancers and the follow-up care of patients. We introduce first the overall interest of electronic nose or tongue for such application of microsensors arrays with data processing in complex media, either gas (e.g., Volatile Organic Compounds or VOCs as biomarkers in breath) or liquid (e.g., modified nucleosides as urinary biomarkers). Then this is illustrated with a versatile acoustic wave transducer, functionalized with molecularly-imprinted polymers (MIP) synthesized for adenosine-5′-monophosphate (AMP) as a model for nucleosides. The device including the thin film coating is described, then static measurements with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electrical characterization after each step of the sensitive MIP process (deposit, removal of AMP template, capture of AMP target) demonstrate the thin film functionality. Dynamic measurements with a microfluidic setup and four targets are presented afterwards. They show a sensitivity of 5 Hz·ppm(−1) of the non-optimized microsensor for AMP detection, with a specificity of three times compared to PMPA, and almost nil sensitivity to 3′AMP and CMP, in accordance with previously published results on bulk MIP.