Abstract
Rapid and reliable diagnosis of infectious diseases caused by pathogens, and timely initiation of appropriate treatment are critical determinants to promote optimal clinical outcomes and general public health. Conventional in vitro diagnostics for infectious diseases are time-consuming and require centralized laboratories, experienced personnel and bulky equipment. Recent advances in electrochemical affinity biosensors have demonstrated to surpass conventional standards in regards to time, simplicity, accuracy and cost in this field. The tremendous potential offered by electrochemical affinity biosensors to detect on-site infectious pathogens at clinically relevant levels in scarcely treated body fluids is clearly stated in this review. The development and application of selected examples using different specific receptors, assay formats and electrochemical approaches focusing on the determination of specific circulating biomarkers of different molecular (genetic, regulatory and functional) levels associated with bacterial and viral pathogens are critically discussed. Existing challenges still to be addressed and future directions in this rapidly advancing and highly interesting field are also briefly pointed out.
Highlights
Pathogen infections are responsible for thousands of deaths and an enormous burden of morbidity worldwide
In order to allow the application of therapy in an early and efficient way using doses correlated with the actual status of the infection, the development of simple and inexpensive methodologies, able to be translated to point-of-care testing (POCT), are highly demanded to determine the target infectious pathogen in an accurate and selective way [2,3,4,5]
If an ribosomal RNA (rRNA) is used as a target, it should be present at a copy number up to 103 or 104 which corresponds to detect a subfemtomolar concentration of RNA
Summary
Pathogen infections are responsible for thousands of deaths and an enormous burden of morbidity worldwide. With the aim of reducing the social and economic costs, the development of rapid diagnostic tests with high throughput and the possibility of multiple target detection, accuracy (in terms of specificity and sensitivity), ease of use, affordability and suitability for on-site use in the field is an important research subject. Such requirements are met by portable stand-alone electrochemical molecular biosensors. Electrochemical molecular biosensors are able to facilitate rapid detection and diagnosis at the POC, which make them useful for an early and unequivocal diagnosis, and to prevent further disease spread [1,7]
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