When an anthropogenic event occurs, such as a chemical leak or an oil spill, many toxicants, including carcinogens, are released en masse into the environment. These carcinogens can be difficult to identify rapidly, sensitively, and selectively in complex environments, such as environmental and biological matrices. This precise detection is critical for first responders, medical professionals, and biomedical researchers to assess the extent of contamination, potential health risks, and long term environmental and physiological damage.<br/>Reported herein is the use of γ-cyclodextrin, an 8-membered cyclic sugar oligosaccharide, to accomplish precisely this kind of rapid detection by binding both the toxicant and a small molecule fluorophore simultaneously in the cavity of the cyclodextrin. The formation of these complexes, termed ternary complexes, allows the toxicant to participate directly in energy transfer with the fluorophore. Energy transfer occurs upon excitation of the toxicant which transfers energy to the fluorophore, resulting in a unique emission signal from the fluorophore. The modular nature of this energy transfer allows the emission signal of the analyte to be tuned through a choice of a fluorophore. This enables the development of an array, wherein each toxicant has a unique response pattern with a variety of fluorophores bound in the cyclodextrin cavity. Exposure of the array to an unknown carcinogen, followed by matching the response pattern to those of known carcinogens, enables the selective detection of highly toxic small-molecule carcinogens. In order to detect these carcinogens in biological systems, urine was chosen as an array matrix. Urine, is one of the most useful biological systems given that most of the metabolites, including those that are carcinogenic, are flushed through the body and can be traced within urine. These toxic analytes are found to be identified in urine in a variety of lifestyles including smoking habits. Given that urine is the easiest to collect, and less complex than other bodily systems, its use as an array matrix will allow medical professionals to rapidly screen an individual’s urine to assess their levels of carcinogen exposure.

Array-based detection of carcinogens and carcinogen metabolites in urine

249th National Meeting (2015)

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