Light-emitting stress hormone sensor could improve treatments for health issues

A new sensor that emits light to indicate levels of the body’s main stress hormone could improve treatments for related health issues, its creator has said.

The luminescent device, which binds with cortisol in the blood or urine, was developed by Andy Yeh, an assistant professor of biomolecular engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Cortisol is a crucial hormone that regulates important bodily functions such as blood pressure and metabolism. Imbalances can lead to health problems, however.

Levels of the hormone have conventionally been measured by doctors. But Yeh hopes the new artificial biosensor could pave the way for point-of-care testing and diagnoses with far greater accuracy than is currently available.

To create the detection system, Yeh designed a protein-based biosensor in which the stress hormone triggers two designed proteins to come close to each other at the molecular level. That process leads to light emission, with more light indicating more cortisol. Using a camera to measure the amount and colour of the light allows cortisol levels to be read with more sensitivity than current tests provide.

The test requires just a drop of blood or urine, which is mixed with a solution that contains the biosensor. A smartphone camera and app could then translate the light emitted into a direct measurement of cortisol levels.

“You can read the signal directly – the output of the sensor is light emissions, so essentially you can just take a picture of the test with your smartphone,” Yeh said. “That’s really field compatible.”

The researcher hopes the technology could also be used in drug development or diagnostic settings to better understand and treat health issues that arise from cortisol deficiencies or surpluses.

The work was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the UC Santa Cruz start-up fund.

The study was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

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