The ability to detect and quantify HIV RNA in blood is essential to sensitive detection of infections and monitoring viremia throughout treatment. Current options for point-of-care HIV diagnosis (i.e. lateral...
Mycoplasma genitalium (MG) is an emerging
sexually
transmitted bacterium. Due to its fastidious and slow-growing nature,
MG is difficult to detect through culture-based diagnostics. Like Neisseria gonorrheae, another bacterial pathogen linked
to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), MG has developed resistance
to macrolide and fluoroquinolone antibiotics used to treat STIs. The
ability to detect MG and identify genomic mutations associated with
antibiotic resistance simultaneously can enable antibiotic stewardship
and mitigate the spread of antibiotic-resistant MG. Toward this end,
we first developed a multiplexed probe-based PCR–melt assay
that detects MG and the presence of macrolide resistance mutations
in the 23S rRNA gene and fluoroquinolone resistance mutations in the parC gene. Each target was identified via its unique combination
of fluorescence label and melting temperature. This approach allowed
differentiation between the different types of mutations at the genes
of interest. Following initial assay optimization, the assay was integrated
into a droplet magnetofluidic cartridge used in a portable platform
to integrate automated sample extraction, PCR amplification, and detection.
Lastly, we demonstrated that the integrated assay and droplet magnetofluidic
platform could detect MG and antibiotic resistance-associated mutations
in clinical isolates spiked into urine samples in 40 min.
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