Plastic-Chip-Based Magnetophoretic Immunoassay for Point-of-Care Diagnosis of Tuberculosis

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a relevant infectious disease in the 21st century, and its extermination is still far from being attained. Due to the extreme infectivity of incipient TB patients, a rapid sensing system for proficient point-of-care (POC) diagnostics is required. In our study, a plastic-chip-based magnetophoretic immunoassay (pcMPI) is introduced using magnetic and gold nanoparticles (NPs) modified with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) antibodies. This pcMPI offers an ultrasensitive limit of detection (LOD) of 1.8 pg·ml(-1) for the detection of CFP-10, an MTB-secreted antigen, as a potential TB biomarker with high specificity. In addition, by combining the plastic chip with an automated spectrophotometer setup, advantages include ease of operation, rapid time to results (1 h), and cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, the pcMPI results using clinical sputum culture filtrate samples are competitively compared with and integrated with clinical data collected from conventional tools such as the acid-fast bacilli (AFB) test, mycobacteria growth indicator tube (MGIT), polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and physiological results. CFP-10 concentrations were consistently higher in patients diagnosed with MTB infection than those seen in patients infected with nontuberculosis mycobacteria (NTM) (P < 0.05), and this novel test can distinguish MTB and NTM while MGIT cannot. All these results indicate that this pcMPI has the potential to become a new commercial TB diagnostic POC platform in view of its sensitivity, portability, and affordability.

A Comparison of Optical, Electrochemical, Magnetic, and Colorimetric Point-of-Care Biosensors for Infectious Disease Diagnosis

“…Other studies utilize the inherent optical properties, surface plasmon resonance (SPR), of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). 39,56 Diagnositic techniques utilizing AuNPs have been studied for the detection of M. tuberculosis , 57 Influenza, 58 and S. aureus . 59 In the study done by Yu, Mengqun et al 59 a fluorescence resonance energy transfer platform was utilized to detect S. aureus detecting as low as 10 CFU/mL in under 30 minutes.…”

“…While these methods can be initially costly and complicated to utilize, the technology can evolve into more miniaturized and easy to use platforms as the development progresses. 24,44,57,64–67…”

High‐Performance Biosensing Systems Based on Various Nanomaterials as Signal Transducers

“…The change in the plasmonic absorbance could also be one of the measurement factors in the detection of a virus or DNA. In this case, a magnetophoretic immunoassay was introduced to demonstrate the efficacy of the detection system . For example, Kim et al detected tuberculosis (TB) aG (CFP‐10) using Au NPs and MNPs .…”

“…MeNPs, QDs, and MNPs have been utilized in optical and electrochemical sensing platforms, and carbon nanomaterials have been used in electrical and optical detection systems . Hybrid nanomaterials have also been applied in various sensing systems, and these nanomaterials can potentially assist in the development of on‐site or point‐of‐care monitoring systems …”

Plasmonic Nanomaterial-Based Optical Biosensing Platforms for Virus Detection

“…Because P-NMs have such specialized optical properties, they are reported to have many potential applications including energy devices, nano optics, sensors, and nanobiomedicine [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ]. Among these, many researchers are investigating development of highly sensitive and selective biosensing systems to address public concerns and health care issues [ 34 , 35 , 36 ]. In addition, P-NMs have improved the specificity of on-site detection and point-of-care diagnosis platforms.…”