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Abstract The proline amino acid and prolyl residues of peptides/proteins confer unique biological and biochemical properties that motivates the development of proline‐selective analysis. The study focuses on one specific class of problem, the detection of single amino acid variants involving proline, and reports a Pro‐selective electrochemiluminescence (ECL) method. To develop this method, the A1‐/A2‐ variants of milk's β‐casein protein are investigated because it is a well‐established example and abundant samples are readily available. Specifically, β‐casein has 209 amino acids with 34 (or 35) proline residues: the A1‐variant has a Pro‐to‐His substitution at position 67 (relative to the A2 variant). The study shows that proline's strong luminescence allows the generic discrimination of: Pro from other amino acids; an A2‐oligopeptide from an A1‐oligopeptide; the A2‐β‐casein variant from the A1‐variant; and commercially‐available A2 milks from A1‐containing regular milks. The evidence indicates that luminescence depends on proline content and accessibility, as well as signal quenching. Compared to conventional immunoassays, the ECL method is simple, rapid, and inexpensive. Further, the ECL‐method is Pro‐selective (vs molecularly‐selective like typical immunoassays) which should make it broadly useful for studying the role of proline in biology and especially useful for tracking the digestion of proline‐rich proteins in the diet. 

Abstract Redox provides unique opportunities for interconverting molecular/biological information into electronic signals. Here, the fabrication of a 3D‐printed multiwell device that can be interfaced into existing laboratory instruments (e.g., well‐plate readers and microscopes) to enable advanced redox‐based spectral and electrochemical capabilities is reported. In the first application, mediated probing is used as a soft sensing method for biomanufacturing: it is shown that electrochemical signal metrics can discern intact mAbs from partially reduced mAb variants (fragmentation), and that these near‐real‐time electrical measurements correlate to off‐line chemical analysis. In the second application,operandospectroelectrochemical measurements are used to characterize a redox‐active catechol‐based hydrogel film: it is shown that electron transfer into/from the film correlates to the molecular switching of the film's redox state with the film's absorbance increasing upon oxidation and the film's fluorescence increasing upon reduction. In the final example, a synthetic biofilm containing redox‐responsiveE. coliis electro‐assembled: it is shown that gene expression can be induced under reducing conditions (via reductive H₂O₂generation) or oxidative conditions (via oxidation of a phenolic redox‐signaling molecule). Overall, this work demonstrates that 3D printing allows the fabrication of bespoke electrochemical devices that can accelerate the understanding of redox‐based phenomena in biology and enable the detection/characterization redox activities in technology.