Detection of chikungunya virus‐specific IgM on laser‐cut paper‐based device using pseudo‐particles as capture antigen

Abstract

The incidence of arbovirus infections has increased dramatically in recent decades, affecting hundreds of millions of people each year. The Togaviridae family includes the chikungunya virus (CHIKV), which is typically transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes and causes a wide range of symptoms from flu‐like fever to severe arthralgia. Although conventional diagnostic tests can provide early diagnosis of CHIKV infections, access to these tests is often limited in developing countries. Consequently, there is an urgent need to develop efficient, affordable, simple, rapid, and robust diagnostic tools that can be used in point‐of‐care settings. Early diagnosis is crucial to improve patient management and to reduce the risk of complications. A glass‐fiber laser‐cut microfluidic device (paper‐based analytical device [PAD]) was designed and evaluated in a proof of principle context, for the analysis of 30 µL of patient serum. Biological raw materials used for the functionalization of the PAD were first screened by MAC‐ELISA (IgM capture enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay) for CHIKV Immunoglobulin M (IgM) capture and then evaluated on the PAD using various human samples. Compared with viral lysate traditionally used for chikungunya (CHIK) serology, CHIKV pseudo‐particles (PPs) have proven to be powerful antigens for specific IgM capture. The PAD was able to detect CHIKV IgM in human sera in less than 10 minutes. Results obtained in patient sera showed a sensitivity of 70.6% and a specificity of around 98%. The PAD showed few cross‐reactions with other tropical viral diseases. The PAD could help health workers in the early diagnosis of tropical diseases such as CHIK, which require specific management protocols in at‐risk populations.

Diagnostic accuracy of serological tests for the diagnosis of Chikungunya virus infection: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…4.4.2 Quality assessment of bias and application. The high risk of bias in the patient selection domain was mainly contributed by studies that applied case-control study design [23,30,38,39,41,45,46,52,54]. As mentioned previously, the case-control study design could exaggerate the test accuracy and thus may not reflect the actual accuracy.…”

Latest Advances in Arbovirus Diagnostics

“…µPADs require no power source, are inexpensive to produce and are easy to transport; thus, they an ideal alternative to traditional techniques. µPADs have been adapted for the detection of Zika using NS1 protein and chikungunya viruses using a laser cut glass fiber µPAD that was capable of the detection of chikungunya-specific IgM in less than 10 min [ 99 , 100 ]. A µPAD device coupled to LAMP amplification has been hypothesized for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 using wax barriers to separate the individual chambers of the µPAD device.…”

Recent applications of paper‐based point‐of‐care devices for biomarker detection

“…Furthermore, photoelectrochemical‐PAD based on TiO 2 /Bi 4 NbO 8 Cl/CoPi has been proposed for ultrasensitive detection of β ‐human chorionic gonadotrophin providing a LOD of 0.005 IU/L . Interestingly, a laser‐cut‐PAD using pseudo‐particles as capture antigen was fabricated for detection of chikungunya virus and a polydiacetylene‐based colorimetric biosensor was developed to detect pandemic influenza (pH1N1) virus by naked‐eye detection .…”