Development of a pH-Insensitive Glucose Indicator for Continuous Glucose Monitoring

In our previous studies, we have developed a glucose indictor used for continuous glucose concentration. We used this indicator to construct a glucose sensor that can be used for minimum-invasively monitoring blood glucose concentration for diabetics. It has been understood that this indicator is pH sensitive, making it less reliable in sensing the intracellular glucose concentration using fluorescence microscopy imaging measurement. In this study, we genetically modified protein structure of the indicator and created a pH insensitive glucose indicator. Our experiment results clearly demonstrated that the engineered glucose indicator is less affected by pH, making it ideal for use in determining the intracellular glucose within living cells using fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy measurement. The determination of intracellular glucose will offer new insights into the mechanisms of blood glucose control in our body and provide more data for the understanding of the development of diabetes in type 2 diabetics.