A smartphone-based solution for fluorescence-powered protein aggregate detection

The level of protein aggregates can be used as an indicator of some diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, and may be closely related to the efficacy of anti-cancer treatments. Moreover, strict control over protein aggregate levels is essential in pharmaceutical manufacturing to prevent potential side effects in the human body. In this study, we present a low-cost solution to evaluate protein aggregate levels in liquid samples using a smartphone-based fluorescence detection device. Initially, protein aggregate levels were assessed in bovine serum albumin samples. Then, this analysis was conducted using total protein extracts from breast cancer cells. The results obtained with the device were consistent with commercial spectrometer measurements, obtaining mean absolute errors of 0.098for bovine serum albumin samples and 0.152 for the proteins extracted from cancer cells, corresponding to differences of 9.8 % and 15.2 % between the commercial spectrometer and the developed device in the considered scales.