Abstract
Inflammatory biomarkers are closely related to infectious diseases. However, traditional clinical tests of laboratory inspection are unable to achieve rapid and accurate detection of these biomarkers on-site due to shortcomings such as complex experimental operation, expensive equipment, and long test time. Herein, we proposed a lateral flow assay (LFA) strip based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) nanotags (SERS-LFA strips) for the simultaneous and quantitative detection of dual infection biomarkers, serum amyloid A (SAA) and C-reactive protein (CRP), respectively. In practice, mesoporous silica (mSiO2)-coated Au nanoparticles (Au NPs) were used as the SERS substrate. Mercaptobenzoic acid (MBA) was embedded in the internal gap between Au NPs and the mSiO2 shell to prepare AuMBA@mSiO2 NPs, onto which SAA and CRP antibodies were modified to prepare two AuMBA@mSiO2 SERS nanotags. The Raman intensities of the test and control lines were simultaneously identified for the qualitative detection of SAA and CRP, with limits of detection (LODs) as low as 0.1 and 0.05 ng/mL for SAA and CRP, respectively. Finally, aiming at point-of-care testing (POCT) applications, we used a smartphone-based portable Raman spectrometer to quantitatively analyze the SERS-LFA strips. The Raman signal could still be accurately detected when the concentration of SAA and CRP was 10 ng/mL, which is lower than the LOD required in clinical practice for most diseases. Therefore, taking into account its simple operation and short analysis time, by using a portable Raman spectrometer which can be equipped with a 5G cloud-based healthcare management system, the current strategy based on SERS-LFA provides the potential for the quick and on-site diagnosis of infectious diseases such as sepsis, which is of great significance for medical guidance on the treatment of widely spread infection-related diseases in remote areas that lack well-developed medical resources.
Highlights
A series of inflammatory biomarkers such as C-reactive protein (CRP), serum amyloid A (SAA), procalcitonin (PCT) and interleukin 6 (IL-6) have been found to be associated with infectious diseases and have been used to diagnose sepsis [1,2,3,4,5,6]
We found that the surfaceenhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-lateral flow assay (LFA) strips had good detection sensitivity and specificity for SAA and CRP in a certain concentration range (0.5–1000 ng/mL)
The processor sends the relevant processing results to to quantitatively detect SAA and CRP were as low as 0.1 and 0.05 ng/mL, respectively, the hospital in the meantime, and the doctor gives the patient corresponding medication which was much lower than using the brightness value for quantification of the analytes
Summary
A series of inflammatory biomarkers such as CRP, SAA, procalcitonin (PCT) and interleukin 6 (IL-6) have been found to be associated with infectious diseases and have been used to diagnose sepsis [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Nanomaterials 2021, 11, 1496 that the death rate caused by sepsis is as high as 50%, affecting more than 30 million people worldwide each year [8]. Sepsis is a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by the body’s inflammatory response to infections such as bacteria, fungi and viruses. Pathogenic bacteria and viruses can cause people to suffer from common infectious diseases, and there are significant differences between the two in clinical medication [12,13]. In the case of viral infection, the concentration of SAA in human blood increases significantly, while the concentration of CRP does not change significantly
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