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Stress is a normal physiological and behavioral response to a stimulus that somehow disturbs the maintenance of homeostasis, leading to changes in cortisol levels. When stress is persistent and uncontrolled, it can severely affect several areas, such as human health and some marine biology sectors, including aquaculture production. Currently, the detection of cortisol is performed in laboratories using conventional techniques with several disadvantages, one of them being the long waiting time for a response. Therefore, it is essential the development of miniaturized analytical devices capable of monitoring in real-time, detecting and quantifying cortisol in point of care (POC). Special optical fiber structure, in this case, D-shape in silica optical fibers (SOF) and polymeric optical fibers (POF) coated with gold (Au) were used in this work for the development of immunosensors based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) for cortisol (stress hormone) detection. In the laboratory, Au coated SOF (Au-SOF) and Au coated POF (Au-POF) were initially characterized at refractive index (RI) with eight glucose concentrations ranging from 1.333 to 1.386 RI units (RIU). The obtained sensitivities were, respectively, 1646.67 ± 91.66 nm/RIU, being lower than the simulated one with 2138.95 ± 142.65 nm/RIU, and 1566.81 ± 96.87 nm/RIU. Subsequently, the fibers were functionalized with anti-cortisol antibodies using cysteamine as the intermediate linker to allow the immobilization of the antibodies to the Au surface. After this procedure, both immunosensors were tested for cortisol concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 100 ng/ml to compare the performances, in which the Au-SOF and Au-POF immunosensors presented a total resonance wavelength shift of 3.22 and 2.10 nm, and sensitivities of 1.08 ± 0.21 nm/log(ng/mL) and 0.52 ± 0.03 nm/log(ng/mL), respectively. Different limits of detection (LODs) were calculated using different methods for each type of immunosensor. One method consisted in performing a Hill fitting to the results and another considering the response of the control interferents. For Au-SOF and Au-POF, the LODs attained through the first method were 0.12 and 0.13 ng/mL (considering the resonance wavelength shift), respectively, and 0.14 ng/mL considering the intensity variation of Au-POF. The second method enabled a LOD of 1.75 and 1.97 ng/mL for Au-SOF and Au-POF, respectively.
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