High-Electron-Mobility MXene-Enhanced Metasurface Biosensors Integrated with Microfluidics for Real-Time Multifunctional Monitoring

Abstract

Two-dimensional MXene materials have gained attention in optics due to their excellent conductivity and light absorption, showing great potential in applications such as photodetectors, photothermal therapy, and laser protection. However, the application of MXene in enhancing plasmonic biosensing on metasurfaces has remained largely unexplored. The MXene functional metasurface plasmonic sensor (MetaSPR), integrated with the advanced microfluidic technology (3MSPR device), enables real-time monitoring of antibodies in three critical fields: precision diagnostics, drug development, and expression process monitoring. The MXene-MetaSPR, retaining the layered structure and high conductivity of MXene, exhibits enhanced sensitivity through its synergistic interaction with the electromagnetic fields within nanoarrays. The sensitivity of label-free IgG detection is increased by more than 250-fold, with a detection limit of 2.56 ng/mL. Experimental results demonstrate that this system is capable of detecting high-affinity (pM) binding between therapeutic antibodies and their targets. Additionally, it enables continuous monitoring during the nanobody expression process in engineered bacteria, with a single antibody concentration analysis completed within a time scale of minutes. The 3MSPR device rapidly and efficiently captures the initial phase of kinetic curves, facilitating precise affinity analysis and optimization of expression efficiency.