Electrochemical magnetic microbeads-based biosensor for point-of-care serodiagnosis of infectious diseases

Abstract

Access to appropriate diagnostic tools is an essential component in theevaluation and improvement of global health. Additionally, timely detection ofinfectious agents is critical in early diagnosis and treatment of infectiousdiseases. Conventional pathogen detection methods such as culturing, enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) or polymerase chain reaction (PCR) requirelong assay times, and complex and expensive instruments making them not adaptableto point-of-care (PoC) needs at resource-constrained places and primary caresettings. Therefore, there is an unmet need to develop portable, simple, rapid,and accurate methods for PoC detection of infections. Here, we present thedevelopment and validation of a portable, robust and inexpensive electrochemical magnetic microbeads-based biosensor (EMBIA) platform for PoC serodiagnosis ofinfectious diseases caused by different types of microorganisms (parasiticprotozoa, bacteria and viruses). We demonstrate the potential use of the EMBIAplatform for in situ diagnosis of human (Chagas disease and human brucellosis)and animal (bovine brucellosis and foot-and-mouth disease) infections clearlydifferentiating infected from non-infected individuals or animals. For Chagasdisease, a more extensive validation of the test was performed showing that theEMBIA platform displayed an excellent diagnostic performance almostindistinguishable, in terms of specificity and sensitivity, from a fluorescentimmunomagnetic assay and the conventional ELISA using the same combination ofantigens. This platform technology could potentially be applicable to diagnoseother infectious and non-infectious diseases as well as detection and/orquantification of biomarkers at the POC and primary care settings.