A diagnostic device for personalized determination of vitamin b6 status and health
Vitamin B6 is an essential nutrient and part of a well-balanced diet. However, B6 deficiency is often observed in elderly people, diabetes patients and alcoholics and associated with higher rates of cardiovascular disease, stroke and cancer. All these risk populations need a stringent and continuous monitoring of B6 levels. At present B6 detection systems suffer from limited speed, scope, convenience and reliability. These tests require a medical doctor as well as external laboratories with expensive and specialized equipment for analysis increasing the overall costs. We here develop a customized assay for vitamin B6 detection with a desired application as reliable, cheap and easy-to-use point-of-care device. This assay system, termed B6VitaStat, is based on the direct monitoring of cofactor binding into diverse enzyme active sites which will be performed in erythrocytes drawn from blood. Key to B6VitaStat is a tailored probe which mimics the structure of the cofactor. This probe is equipped with a recognition tag allowing to visualize binding to B6-dependent enzymes. The less B6 is bound, the stronger the signal, the higher the overall deficiency. This principle will be incorporated in an easy-to-use device that is based on an antibody printed microarray hallmarked by its cheap and reproducible production. The robust array can be used world-wide including developing countries with less pronounced medical infrastructure. The B6VitaStat team combines complementary expertise including chemistry, engineering and entrepreneurship, which will provide a basis for the envisioned commercialization. Given that B6VitaStat will be the first device of this class we estimate a significant cost reduction compared to current clinical procedures. Overall, we aim to introduce a new device for constant monitoring B6 vitamin status in risk patients and provide a cheap, easy-to-use and reliable method suited for all kinds of applications including those in less-developed countries.