scholarly journals Low-Cost and Scalable Platform with Multiplexed Microwell Array Biochip for Rapid Diagnosis of COVID-19

Research ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Yang Wang ◽  
Kaiju Li ◽  
Gaolian Xu ◽  
Chuan Chen ◽  
Guiqin Song ◽  
...  

Sensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 is of great importance for inhibiting the current pandemic of COVID-19. Here, we report a simple yet efficient platform integrating a portable and low-cost custom-made detector and a novel microwell array biochip for rapid and accurate detection of SARS-CoV-2. The instrument exhibits expedited amplification speed that enables colorimetric read-out within 25 minutes. A polymeric chip with a laser-engraved microwell array was developed to process the reaction between the primers and the respiratory swab RNA extracts, based on reverse transcriptase loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP). To achieve clinically acceptable performance, we synthesized a group of six primers to identify the conserved regions of the ORF1ab gene of SARS-CoV-2. Clinical trials were conducted with 87 PCR-positive and 43 PCR-negative patient samples. The platform demonstrated both high sensitivity (95.40%) and high specificity (95.35%), showing potentials for rapid and user-friendly diagnosis of COVID-19 among many other infectious pathogens.

Author(s):  
Zhijia Peng ◽  
Xiaogang Lin ◽  
Weiqi Nian ◽  
Xiaodong Zheng ◽  
Jayne Wu

Early diagnosis and treatment have always been highly desired in the fight against cancer, and detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has recently been touted as highly promising for early cancer screening. Consequently, the detection of ctDNA in liquid biopsy gains much attention in the field of tumor diagnosis and treatment, which has also attracted research interest from the industry. However, traditional gene detection technology is difficult to achieve low cost, real-time and portable measurement of ctDNA. Electroanalytical biosensors have many unique advantages such as high sensitivity, high specificity, low cost and good portability. Therefore, this review aims to discuss the latest development of biosensors for minimal-invasive, rapid, and real-time ctDNA detection. Various ctDNA sensors are reviewed with respect to their choices of receptor probes, detection strategies and figures of merit. Aiming at the portable, real-time and non-destructive characteristics of biosensors, we analyze their development in the Internet of Things, point-of-care testing, big data and big health.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongke Qu ◽  
Chunmei Fan ◽  
Mingjian Chen ◽  
Xiangyan Zhang ◽  
Qijia Yan ◽  
...  

AbstractThe cyclic signal amplification technology has been widely applied for the ultrasensitive detection of many important biomolecules, such as nucleic acids, proteins, enzymes, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), metal ions, exosome, etc. Due to their low content in the complex biological samples, traditional detection methods are insufficient to satisfy the requirements for monitoring those biomolecules. Therefore, effective and sensitive biosensors based on cyclic signal amplification technology are of great significance for the quick and simple diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Fluorescent biosensor based on cyclic signal amplification technology has become a research hotspot due to its simple operation, low cost, short time, high sensitivity and high specificity. This paper introduces several cyclic amplification methods, such as rolling circle amplification (RCA), strand displacement reactions (SDR) and enzyme-assisted amplification (EAA), and summarizes the research progress of using this technology in the detection of different biomolecules in recent years, in order to provide help for the research of more efficient and sensitive detection methods. Graphical Abstract


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.R. Marinowic ◽  
G. Zanirati ◽  
F.V.F. Rodrigues ◽  
M.V.C. Grahl ◽  
A.M. Alcará ◽  
...  

Abstract Phylogenetic analyses demonstrated that etiologic agent of pandemic outbreak is a betacoronavirus named SARS-CoV-2. For public health interventions, a diagnostic test with high sensitivity and specificity is required. The gold standard protocol for diagnosis by WHO is the RT-PCR. To detect low viral load and large-scale screening a low-cost diagnostic test becomes necessary. Here we develop a cost-effective test capable of to detect the new coronavirues. We validated an auxiliary protocol for molecular diagnosis with RT-PCR SYBR Green methodology to successfully screen negative cases of SARS-CoV-2. Our results demonstrated that a set of primers with high specificity, and no homology with other viruses from Coronovideae family or human respiratory tract pathogenic viruses. Optimization of annealing temperature and polymerization time led to an high specificity in the PCR products. We have developed a more affordable and swift methodology for negative SARS-CoV-2 screening. This methodology can be applied on large scale populational to soften panic and economic burden through guidance for isolation strategies.


Cephalalgia ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (12) ◽  
pp. 1326-1330 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Mostardini ◽  
VC d'Agostino ◽  
DE Dugoni ◽  
R Cerbo

Headache symptoms account for 1-3% of admissions to an emergency department (ED). Most patients affected by a primary headache (PH) have migraine, although they are often misdiagnosed as ‘headache not otherwise specified’. We investigated the possibility of using ID-Migraine (ID-M) to improve migraine recognition in the ED setting. We planned a pilot study involving ED out-patients with a diagnosis of PH. Diagnoses of a blinded headache expert were subsequently matched with the ID-M results. We tested ID-M on 230 patients (199 PH, 31 secondary headaches). Considering only PH, ID-M exhibited a sensitivity of 0.94 and specificity of 0.83 with a positive predictive value (PPV) of 0.99. The ID-M is a simple migraine screener with high sensitivity, high specificity and high PPV, even in an ED-derived population. Methodical use of this tool in an ED setting may, once a secondary headache has been excluded, lead to rapid diagnosis of migraine.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Bartkova ◽  
Marko Vendelin ◽  
Immanuel Sanka ◽  
Pille Pata ◽  
Ott Scheler

AbstractDroplet microfluidic assays are rapidly gaining popularity as the result of the ability to manipulate and monitor single biological molecules, individual cells or small populations of bacteria in pico- and nanoliter droplets, with high sensitivity, precision and accuracy in a high-throughput manner. Nonetheless, there is a demand for user-friendly and low-cost droplet analysis technology. In this article we meet this demand with free open-source software CellProfiler (CP). To illustrate the competence of CP as a droplet analysis tool, we show droplet digital quantification of viable fluorescent bacteria.


Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (17) ◽  
pp. 2065
Author(s):  
Mukunthan Tharmakulasingam ◽  
Nouman S. Chaudhry ◽  
Manoharanehru Branavan ◽  
Wamadeva Balachandran ◽  
Aurore C. Poirier ◽  
...  

An artificial intelligence-assisted low-cost portable device for the rapid detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is presented here. This standalone temperature-controlled device houses tubes designed for conducting reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assays. Moreover, the device utilises tubes illuminated by LEDs, an in-built camera, and a small onboard computer with automated image acquisition and processing algorithms. This intelligent device significantly reduces the normal assay run time and removes the subjectivity associated with operator interpretation of colourimetric RT-LAMP results. To further improve this device’s usability, a mobile app has been integrated into the system to control the LAMP assay environment and to visually display the assay results by connecting the device to a smartphone via Bluetooth. This study was undertaken using ~5000 images produced from the ~200 LAMP amplification assays using the prototype device. Synthetic RNA and a small panel of positive and negative SARS-CoV-2 patient samples were assayed for this study. State-of-the-art image processing and artificial intelligence algorithms were applied to these images to analyse them and to select the most efficient algorithm. The template matching algorithm for image extraction and MobileNet CNN architecture for classification results provided 98.0% accuracy with an average run time of 20 min to confirm the endpoint result. Two working points were chosen based on the best compromise between sensitivity and specificity. The high sensitivity point has a sensitivity value of 99.12% and specificity value of 70.8%, while at the high specificity point, the sensitivity is 96.05% and specificity 93.59%. Furthermore, this device provides an efficient and cost-effective platform for non-health professionals to detect not only SARS-CoV-2 but also other pathogens in resource-limited laboratories, factories, airports, schools, universities, and homes.


Chemosensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Rania Oueslati ◽  
Yu Jiang ◽  
Jiangang Chen ◽  
Jayne Wu

Biosensors have shown great potential in realizing rapid, low cost, and portable on-site detection for diseases. This work reports the development of a new bioelectronic sensor called AC electrokinetics-based capacitive (ABC) biosensor, for the detection of genomic DNA (gDNA) of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The ABC sensor is based on interdigitated microelectrodes biofunctionalized with oligonucleotide probes. It uses a special AC signal for direct capacitive monitoring of topological change on nanostructured sensor surface, which simultaneously induces dielectrophoretic enrichment of target gDNAs. As a result, rapid and specific detection of gDNA/probe hybridization can be realized with high sensitivity. It requires no signal amplification such as labeling, hybridization chain reaction, or nucleic acid sequence-based amplification. This method involves only simple sample preparation. After optimization of nanostructured sensor surface and signal processing, the ABC sensor demonstrated fast turnaround of results (~10 s detection), excellent sensitivity (a detection limit of 4.7 DNA copies/µL MRSA gDNA), and high specificity, suitable for point of care diagnosis. As a bioelectronic sensor, the developed ABC sensors can be easily adapted for detections of other infectious agents.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
D. R. Marinowic ◽  
G. Zanirati ◽  
F. V. F. Rodrigues ◽  
M. V. C. Grahl ◽  
A. M. Alcará ◽  
...  

AbstractPhylogenetic analysis has demonstrated that the etiologic agent of the 2020 pandemic outbreak is a betacoronavirus named SARS-CoV-2. For public health interventions, a diagnostic test with high sensitivity and specificity is required. The gold standard protocol for diagnosis by the Word Health Organization (WHO) is RT-PCR. To detect low viral loads and perform large-scale screening, a low-cost diagnostic test is necessary. Here, we developed a cost-effective test capable of detecting SARS-CoV-2. We validated an auxiliary protocol for molecular diagnosis with the SYBR Green RT-PCR methodology to successfully screen negative cases of SARS-CoV-2. Our results revealed a set of primers with high specificity and no homology with other viruses from the Coronovideae family or human respiratory tract pathogenic viruses, presenting with complementarity only for rhinoviruses/enteroviruses and Legionella spp. Optimization of the annealing temperature and polymerization time led to a high specificity in the PCR products. We have developed a more affordable and swift methodology for negative SARS-CoV-2 screening. This methodology can be applied on a large scale to soften panic and economic burden through guidance for isolation strategies.


2013 ◽  
Vol 543 ◽  
pp. 239-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faramarz Hossein-Babaei ◽  
Amir Amini

Generic gas sensors are commonly used for the detection of different airborne contaminants due to their high sensitivity, long life and low cost, but they generally suffer from the variety of drifts and the lack of selectivity. Different techniques have been developed for selectivity enhancement in metal oxide gas sensors, among which operating temperature modulation is well known. It has been observed that sharp pallet temperature changes provide more analyte-related information. Due to the high thermal capacitance of the device, applying step voltage pulses to a bulk tin oxide gas sensor fails to provide step pallet temperature variations. On the other hand, the low thermal capacity of the custom made microheater gas sensors renders them vulnerable to all kinds of thermal noise and agitations. A novel technique is reported for temperature modulation, which facilitates sharp temperature rises of the gas sensitive pallets in generic gas sensors [. In this technique, a sharp heating voltage spike, considerably surpassing the nominal heating voltage, is applied prior to each heating voltage step. The thermal impact of these spikes is adjusted by controlling v2dt for obtaining the closest variations to the ideal temperature profile. Here, the advantages and effectiveness of the technique are demonstrated by differentiating among iso-butanol, tert-butanol, 1-butanol and 2-butanol contaminations in a wide concentration range in air using only a single generic tin oxide gas sensor.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (20) ◽  
pp. 4359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiqi Sun ◽  
Wei Zheng ◽  
Chao Lin ◽  
Dongxuan Shen

Immunoassays have been widely used in scientific research and clinical diagnosis due to their versatile detection capability and high specificity. Immunoagglutination assays are kinds of immunoassay, which can simply and rapidly measure the concentration of analytes. In this work, we developed a low-cost micro-volume nephelometric system for quantitative immunoagglutination assays. We used off-the-shelf components to build the system, and the total cost of key components is only about 20 US dollars. The total detection volume in our system was as low as 3 µL, which could significantly reduce the reagent cost and required sample volume. We further evaluated the system performance via the immunoagglutination assay to measure the concentration of C-reactive protein, a plasma protein with levels rising in response to inflammation. The results demonstrated that our system could measure the concentration of analytes with relatively high sensitivity and precision within four minutes, and has high potential to be applied for clinical diagnostic tests.


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