Novel Sensitive Electrochemical Immunosensor Development for the Selective Detection of HopQ H. pylori Bacteria Biomarker.

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a highly contagious pathogenic bacterium that can cause gastrointestinal ulcers and may gradually lead to gastric cancer. H. pylori expresses the outer membrane HopQ protein at the earliest stages of infection. Therefore, HopQ is a highly reliable candidate as a biomarker for H. pylori detection in saliva samples. In this work, an H. pylori immunosensor is based on detecting HopQ as an H. pylori biomarker in saliva. The immunosensor was developed by surface modification of screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCE) with MWCNT-COOH decorated with gold nanoparticles (AuNP) followed by HopQ capture antibody grafting on SPCE/MWCNT/AuNP surface using EDC/S-NHS chemistry. The sensor performance was investigated utilizing various methods, such as cyclic voltammetry (CV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). H. pylori detection performance in spiked saliva samples was evaluated by square wave voltammetry (SWV). The sensor is suitable for HopQ detection with excellent sensitivity and linearity in the 10 pg/mL-100 ng/mL range, with a 2.0 pg/mL limit of detection (LOD) and an 8.6 pg/mL limit of quantification (LOQ). The sensor was tested in saliva at 10 ng/mL, and recovery of 107.6% was obtained by SWV. From Hill's model, the dissociation constant Kd for HopQ/HopQ antibody interaction is estimated to be 4.60 × 10-10 mg/mL. The fabricated platform shows high selectivity, good stability, reproducibility, and cost-effectiveness for H. pylori early detection due to the proper choice of biomarker, the nanocomposite material utilization to boost the SPCE electrical performance, and the intrinsic selectivity of the antibody-antigen approach. Additionally, we provide insight into possible future aspects that researchers are recommended to focus on.

Comparative study of different control techniques for the regulation of blood glucose level in diabetic patients.

Blood glucose regulation is of a great concern for insulin-dependant patients with excessive glucose in blood (hyperglycaemia), or low glucose profile (hypoglycaemia) due to excess insulin delivery. Both conditions can cause dangerous complications for diabetic patients, and hence glucose regulation in blood is of prime importance. Insulin pumps are used to deliver insulin in small quantities, allowing the glucose level to remain as close as possible to that of non-diabetics (near 100 mg dl(-1)). Different control techniques are used to maintain the glucose level and most of them depend on an exact mathematical or empirical model of insulin-glucose interaction. Recently, we have proposed different controllers that are based on fuzzy logic and so do not use mathematical modelling, which in general is nonlinear, complex and suffers from uncertainties. PI fuzzy controllers are physically related to classical PI and PID controllers, which are extremely popular. The parameter settings of classical and fuzzy logic controllers are based on deep common physical background. In this manuscript, a comparative study is proposed to evaluate the use of fuzzy logic controllers over other conventional controllers such as PI and PID controllers to maintain the blood glucose level within a normoglycaemic average especially when a diabetic patient is subjected to different conditions.