The level of
cortisol can reflect people's psychological stress, help diagnose
adrenal gland diseases, and is also related to several mental diseases. In this study, we developed a
cortisol monoclonal antibody-oriented approach to modify an immunosensor for wearable label-free and persistent sweat
cortisol detection. On such an antibody-oriented immunosensor, the fragment crystallizable (Fc) region is partially inserted within the
metal-organic framework (MOF), and antibody-binding regions of the
cortisol monoclonal antibody (Cmab) were exposed on the MOF surface via selective growth and self-assembly. Such ordered and oriented embedding of
antibodies in the MOF resulted in excellent antibody activity and improved stability and
antigen-binding capacity. We also engineered the full integrated system for on-body sweat
cortisol biosensing performance in several volunteers, and the results indicated that this wearable sensor is suitable for practical
cortisol detection with a good linear detection range from 1 pg/mL to 1 μg/mL with a lower limit of detection of 0.26 pg/mL. Moreover, the wearable sensor demonstrated good persistence in detecting
cortisol, with only 4.1% decay after 9 days of storage. The present work represents a simple oriented antibody assembling approach to improve the stability of
antibodies, providing an important step toward long-term continuous sweat
biomarker detection.