Additive Manufactured Paper-PMMA Hybrid Microfluidic Chip for Simultaneous Monitoring of artificial urine Creatinine and pH.

Abstract

Nowadays, kidney dysfunction is becoming a common health issue due to the modernized lifestyle. Even though medications are commercially available to treat kidney diseases, early diagnosis is vital and challenging. Clinically, measuring urine creatinine and pH has gained significant interest as a way to diagnose kidney diseases early. In the present work, we have attempted to develop a low-cost, robust, accurate and naked-eye colorimetric method to determine both creatinine levels and pH variations in an artificial urine samples using simple 3D-printed hybrid microfluidic device. Creatinine presence was identified by incorporation of traditional Jaffe test onto the hybrid paper–PMMA microfluidic device and pH (4-8) have been identified by utilizing simple anthocyanin test. Notably, the tests were established without employing any sophisticated or costly instrument clusters. The developed 3D-printed microfluidic probe showed a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.04 mM for creatinine over a concentration range of 1-10 mM, with a regression coefficient (R2) of 0.995 in the laboratory conditions. Interestingly the experimental data with artificial urine exhibited a wide linear range from 0.1 mM to 5 mM under different pH value ranging from 4 to 8 in the presence of matrices other than proteins commonly found in patient urine samples, which point towards the potential use for present method for pre-clinical analysis. Since the wide linear range under artificial urine samples falls well below the clinically relevant concentrations of urine creatine in humans (0.07-0.27 mM), the developed lab-on-chip device is further suitable for clinical evaluation with proper ethical clearance. The 3D-printed hybrid microfluidic colorimetry based creatinine detection and pH indicator platform could be beneficial in the healthcare sector due to the on-spot testing capabilities, cost-effectiveness, ease of use, robustness, and instrument-free approach.