Saliva-Sensing Dental Floss: A Novel Tool for Assessing Daily Stress via On-Demand Salivary Cortisol Measurement Integrating Molecularly Imprinted Polymer and Thread Microfluidics

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel saliva-sensing dental floss device that uses molecularly imprinted polymers and thread microfluidics to rapidly and accurately measure salivary cortisol, enabling real-time stress monitoring in daily life.

Contribution

It repurposes dental floss as a non-invasive, on-demand saliva diagnostic tool integrating molecularly imprinted polymers and microfluidics for rapid cortisol detection.

Findings

Detection range of 0.10-10000 pg/mL with high accuracy

Results obtained within 5 minutes

High correlation (r=0.9910) with ELISA assays

Abstract

Elevated stress negatively impacts health, increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases, weak immunity, anxiety, and cognitive decline. Current lab-based methods lack real-time stress measurement, while saliva diagnostics offers a convenient and non-invasive alternative. This work proposes repurposing dental floss as a thread-analytical saliva diagnostic device. This method uses flossing to collect and transport saliva to a flexible electrochemical sensor via capillary microfluidics, where cortisol, a stress biomarker, is measured. By integrating an electropolymerized molecularly imprinted polymer specific to cortisol (cort-eMIP) on a porous-laser-engraved-graphene (PLEG) working electrode, the saliva-floss platform shows a detection range of 0.10-10000 pg mL-1 (R2 = 0.9916) with a detection limit of 0.023 pg mL-1 for cortisol (in buffer medium). The saliva-sensing dental floss provides results within 5 minutes. The thread-based microfluidic design minimizes interference and ensures consistent repeatability when testing artificial and actual human saliva samples, yielding 98.64 to 102.4 percent recoveries with a relative standard deviation of 5.01%, demonstrating high accuracy and precision. Validated using human saliva samples in a stress study, it showed a high correlation (r= 0.9910) with conventional ELISA assays. Combined with a wireless readout, this saliva floss offers a convenient way to monitor daily stress levels and can be extended to detect other critical salivary biomarkers.