Obesity is a serious health issue related with increased body fat content. Other than being a disease condition by itself, it also acts as a risk factor for many metabolic and cardiovascular diseases. There is no definitive treatment available and control of the disease is achieved via lifestyle modifications, hence early detection of the risk to be obese is of paramount importance. Nevertheless, accurate diagnostic methods for obesity are not widely available in the current clinical setting due to the high cost and associated drawbacks. Utilization of ‘leptin’, which is an accurate indicator of body fat content, has gained the attention of researchers as a biomarker for obesity. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of developing a silver nanoparticle based nanobiosensor for the detection of leptin.<br/>Leptin detection was done using an immunoanalytical method by surface functionalization of silver nanoparticles using anti-leptin antibodies. UV-Vis spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering and scanning electron microscopy were used for the characterization of nanoparticles. Optimum conditions for the antibody-nanoparticle functionalization were determined using a current leptin detection method, enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. Detection principle of this novel biosensor was based on changes in surface plasmon resonance manifested via UV-Vis absorption. Significant changes in the absorption peak in the presence of leptin confirmed the leptin detection ability of the developed nanobiosensor.<br/>This nanoparticle based detection system could be used as an intermediate detection step for qualitative analysis of samples as positive or negative for leptin. It could be further developed as a novel method to measure body fat content thereby allowing the early diagnosis of the risk towards obesity. This study gives insight to a promising alternative method to existing detection methods which are more expensive and time consuming.<br/><br/>

Development of a nanobiosensor for the detection of leptin; biomarker for obesity

2019 Fall National Meeting

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