ABSTRACT
Access to appropriate diagnostic tools is an essential component in the evaluation and improvement of global health. Additionally, timely detection of infectious agents is critical in early diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases. Conventional pathogen detection methods such as culturing, enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) or polymerase chain reaction (PCR) require long assay times, and complex and expensive instruments making them not adaptable to point-of-care (PoC) needs at resource-constrained places and primary care settings. Therefore, there is an unmet need to develop portable, simple, rapid, and accurate methods for PoC detection of infections. Here, we present the development and validation of a portable, robust and inexpensive electrochemical magnetic microbeads-based biosensor (EMBIA) platform for PoC serodiagnosis of infectious diseases caused by different types of microorganisms (parasitic protozoa, bacteria and viruses). We demonstrate the potential use of the EMBIA platform for in situ diagnosis of human (Chagas disease and human brucellosis) and animal (bovine brucellosis and foot-and-mouth disease) infections clearly differentiating infected from non-infected individuals or animals. For Chagas disease, a more extensive validation of the test was performed showing that the EMBIA platform displayed an excellent diagnostic performance almost indistinguishable, in terms of specificity and sensitivity, from a fluorescent immunomagnetic assay and the conventional ELISA using the same combination of antigens. This platform technology could potentially be applicable to diagnose other infectious and non-infectious diseases as well as detection and/or quantification of biomarkers at the POC and primary care settings.
Subject(s)
Biosensing Techniques , Communicable Diseases/blood , Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay/methods , Serologic Tests/methods , Animals , Bacteria/isolation & purification , Bacteria/pathogenicity , Communicable Diseases/microbiology , Communicable Diseases/parasitology , Communicable Diseases/virology , Humans , Magnetics , Parasites/isolation & purification , Parasites/pathogenicity , Point-of-Care Systems , Viruses/isolation & purification , Viruses/pathogenicityABSTRACT
The development of an inmunosensor for the point-of-care detection of the foot-and-mouth cattle disease is presented. The detector is based on an ELISA method with electrochemical detection. A non-structural protein, 3ABC, is used to selectively detect antibodies is used to selectively detect anti-3ABC antibodies produced after infection. The biological test is performed onto a screen printed electrodes. A dedicated small, portable potentiostat is employed for the control of the sensors, as well as data acquisition, processing, and storage.
