La Spina, Rita Ferrero, Valentina E. V. Aiello, Venera Pedotti, Mattia Varani, Luca Lettieri, Teresa Calzolai, Luigi Haasnoot, Willem Colpo, Pascal 2017-12-22 Endocrine Disrupting Compounds (EDCs) are chemical substances shown to interfere with endogenous hormones affecting the endocrine, immune and nervous systems of mammals. EDCs are the causative agents of diseases including reproductive disorders and cancers. This highlights the urgency to develop fast and sensitive methods to detect EDCs, which are detrimental even at very low concentrations. In this work, we propose a label-free surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor method to detect specific EDCs (17 β-estradiol (E2), ethinyl-estradiol, 4-nonylphenol, tamoxifen) through their binding to estrogen receptor alpha (ERα). We show that the use of rationally designed ERα (as bio-recognition element) in combination with conformation-sensitive peptides (as amplification agent, resulting in increased responses) enables the detection of low parts per billion (ppb) levels of E2. As a proof of concept, this bioassay was used to detect E2 in (spiked) real water samples from fish farms, rivers and the sea at low ppb levels after concentration by solid phase extraction. In addition, the present SPR assay that combines a conformation-sensitive peptide with an array of ERα mutants is very promising for the assessment of the risk of potential estrogenic activity for chemical substances. application/pdf https://n2t.net/ark:/12658/srd1319216 https://susi.usi.ch/global/documents/319216 https://susi.usi.ch/documents/319216/files/LaSpina_B_2018.pdf eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.3390/bios8010001 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/ark/12658/srd1319216 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess CC BY Biosensors. - 2018, vol. 8, no. 1, p. 1-15 Estrogen receptor 17β-estradiol Label-free assay Surface plasmon resonance Amplification Water info:eu-repo/classification/udc/61 Label-free biosensor detection of endocrine disrupting compounds using engineered estrogen receptors http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501