Electrochemical On‐site Amino Acids Detection of Maple Syrup Urine Disease Using Vertically Aligned Nickel Nanowires

In this work, vertically aligned nickel nanowires‐based electrochemical sensors (v‐NiNWs) for rapid detection of branched‐chain amino acids for a non‐invasive screening of maple syrup urine disease (MSUD), are proposed. v‐NiNWs meet the required features for decentralized clinical diagnosis: easy to operate, fast sensor response and short total analysis times (5 min), as well as low sample consumption (250 ml). The analytical characteristics (for leucine as representative branched‐chain amino acid in MSUD) such as detection limit (8 μM) and linear range (25–700 μM which includes as midpoint the amino acids cut‐off of 250 μM) clearly showed the suitability of v‐NiNWs as new and disposable analytical tool for rapid screening of branched‐chain amino acids in MSUD because of their high capabilities for reliable differentiation between healthy and ill clinical sample profiles. In addition, intra and inter‐electrodes repeatability were excellent with values of RSD≤4 and 9 %, respectively (n=5). This approach opens novel avenues not only for ultrafast diagnosis of MSUD using miniaturized and even disposable devices but also for a future point‐of‐care testing; providing novel alternatives for on‐site decentralized monitoring.