Monitoring the level of infection by COVID-19: an previous experiment to possibility of future application to the C-reactive protein detection by bioelectric signals

Abstract

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a marker of inflammation and infection, and is altered in COVID-19 patients. 2-methacryloyloxyetyl phosphorylcholine (MPC) is a polymer containing phosphorylcholine, a protein that anchors CRP. The purpose of this work was to detect CRP by bioelectric signal resulting from its interaction with MPC. The signal acquisition system was elaborated using Arduino in conjunction with the Parallax Data Acquisition (PLX-DAQ) program for data transfer to Excel, which allowed the treatment of the obtained signal. 10 volunteers were also enrolled to provide blood samples for the purpose of using CRP on confectioned biomaterial containing MPC. After pipetting the volunteer's blood serum into the biomaterial containing MPC, it was possible to obtain a bioelectric signals from the interaction of MPC with CRP. It is concluded that it is possible to detect the presence of CRP by bioelectric signal, and that the use of MPC is promising for future application in collection strips, which would allow the quantification of CRP by portable electronic equipment. An application example would be monitoring the infection level of patients with COVID-19.