Enhancing glucose flux into sweat by increasing paracellular permeability of the sweat gland

PLoS One. 2018 Jul 16;13(7):e0200009. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0200009. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

Non-invasive wearable biosensors provide real-time, continuous, and actionable health information. However, difficulties detecting diluted biomarkers in excreted biofluids limit practical applications. Most biomarkers of interest are transported paracellularly into excreted biofluids from biomarker-rich blood and interstitial fluid during normal modulation of cellular tight junctions. Calcium chelators are reversible tight junction modulators that have been shown to increase absorption across the intestinal epithelium. However, calcium chelators have not yet been shown to improve the extraction of biomarkers. Here we show that for glucose, a paracellularly transported biomarker, the flux into sweat can be increased by >10x using citrate, a calcium chelator, in combination with electroosmosis. Our results demonstrate a method of increasing glucose flux through the sweat gland epithelium, thereby increasing the concentration in sweat. Future work should examine if this method enhances flux for other paracellularly transported biomarkers to make it possible to detect more biomarkers with currently available biosensors.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Biological Transport / drug effects
  • Biosensing Techniques
  • Citrates / pharmacology
  • Dose-Response Relationship, Drug
  • Electroosmosis
  • Female
  • Glucose / metabolism*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Permeability / drug effects
  • Sweat / metabolism*
  • Sweat Glands / cytology
  • Sweat Glands / drug effects
  • Sweat Glands / metabolism*
  • Young Adult

Substances

  • Citrates
  • Glucose

Grants and funding

Jason Heikenfeld received two grants from the following funding agencies: Air Force Research Labs (USAF contract #FA8650-16-C-6760) and the Ohio Federal Research Network (PO FY16-049; WSARC-1077-700). The funder provided support in the form of salaries for authors JH, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. In addition, we note that one or more of the authors are employed by a commercial company: UES, Inc. and Eccrine Systems, Inc.