A multiplexed ion-exchange membrane-based miRNA (MIX·miR) detection platform for rapid diagnosis of myocardial infarction

Micro RNAs (miRNAs) have shown great potential as rapid and discriminating biomarkers for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) diagnosis. We have developed a multiplexed ion-exchange membrane-based miRNA (MIX·miR) preconcentration/sensing amplification-free platform for quantifying in parallel a panel of miRNAs, including miR-1, miR-208b, and miR-499, from the same plasma samples from: 1) reference subjects with no evident coronary artery disease (NCAD); 2) subjects with stable coronary artery disease (CAD); and 3) subjects experiencing ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) prior to (STEMI-pre) and following (STEMI-PCI) percutaneous coronary intervention. The picomolar limit of detection from raw plasma and 3-decade dynamic range of MIX·miR permits detection of the miRNA panel in untreated samples from disease patients and its precise standard curve, provided by large 0.1 to 1 V signals and eliminates individual sensor calibration. The use of molecular concentration feature reduces the assay time to less than 30 minutes and increases the detection sensitivity by bringing all targets close to the sensors. miR-1 was low for NCAD patients but more than one order of magnitude above the normal value for all samples from three categories (CAD, STEMI-pre, and STEMI-PCI) of patients with CAD. In fact, miR-1 expression levels of stable CAD, STEMI-pre and STEMI-PCI are each more than 10-fold higher than the previous class, in that order, well above the 95% confidence level of MIX·miR. Its overexpression estimate is significantly higher than the PCR benchmark. This suggests that, in contrast to protein biomarkers of myocardial injury, miR-1 appears to differentiate ischemia from both reperfusion injury and non-AMI CAD patients. The battery-operated MIX·miR can be a portable and low-cost AMI diagnostic device, particularly useful in settings where cardiac catheterization is not readily available to determine the status of coronary reperfusion.