Abstract
Oxidative stress is a common event in a variety of chronic diseases and its detection is confined to equipped laboratories with dedicated instruments and with personnel with high specialization. Electrochemical sensors have been demonstrated to be effective, easy-to-use, and reliable tools for quantifying extracellular hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) in airway epithelial preclinical models. Economic analyses of biomedical studies are increasingly needed. The present cost-minimization analysis compares the experimental costs of a traditional oxidative stress workflow with those of a screening strategy based on electrochemical H₂O₂ detection. The experimental design included bronchial epithelial cells exposed to cigarette smoke extract (CSE), as oxidative stress inducer, at three different concentrations and for three time points. As downstream events to CSE exposure, it was planned to assess mitochondrial superoxide production, toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and NF-kB expression, IL-8 gene expression and concentrations, and fluorescent advanced glycation end products (fAGE). The detection of H₂O₂ by electrochemical sensors in culture supernatants enables downstream events to be assessed only under conditions in which an extracellular oxidative response is detected, allowing the identification of the optimal time point and stimulus concentration. Considering a failure rate of 23% for both methods, the sensor-based approach reduces the overall experimental cost by 85.67% compared with the traditional ones. This value reflects the decrease in consumables and personnel time associated with preliminary screening performed with electrochemical sensors. In conclusion, the present analysis supports the utility of electrochemical sensors in optimizing research costs of preclinical studies aimed at assessing oxidative homeostasis perturbation and relative downstream events.