Issue 35, 2019

Seconds-resolved pharmacokinetic measurements of the chemotherapeutic irinotecan in situ in the living body

Abstract

The ability to measure drugs in the body rapidly and in real time would advance both our understanding of pharmacokinetics and our ability to optimally dose and deliver pharmacological therapies. To this end, we are developing electrochemical aptamer-based (E-AB) sensors, a seconds-resolved platform technology that, as critical for performing measurements in vivo, is reagentless, reversible, and selective enough to work when placed directly in bodily fluids. Here we describe the development of an E-AB sensor against irinotecan, a member of the camptothecin family of cancer chemotherapeutics, and its adaptation to in vivo sensing. To achieve this we first re-engineered (via truncation) a previously reported DNA aptamer against the camptothecins to support high-gain E-AB signaling. We then co-deposited the modified aptamer with an unstructured, redox-reporter-modified DNA sequence whose output was independent of target concentration, rendering the sensor's signal gain a sufficiently strong function of square-wave frequency to support kinetic-differential-measurement drift correction. The resultant, 200 μm-diameter, 3 mm-long sensor achieves 20 s-resolved, multi-hour measurements of plasma irinotecan when emplaced in the jugular veins of live rats, thus providing an unprecedentedly high-precision view into the pharmacokinetics of this class of chemotherapeutics.

Graphical abstract: Seconds-resolved pharmacokinetic measurements of the chemotherapeutic irinotecan in situ in the living body

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
27 Mar 2019
Accepted
05 Jul 2019
First published
22 Jul 2019
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2019,10, 8164-8170

Seconds-resolved pharmacokinetic measurements of the chemotherapeutic irinotecan in situ in the living body

A. Idili, N. Arroyo-Currás, K. L. Ploense, A. T. Csordas, M. Kuwahara, T. E. Kippin and K. W. Plaxco, Chem. Sci., 2019, 10, 8164 DOI: 10.1039/C9SC01495K

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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