Abstract

Saliva specimens have drawn interest for diagnosing respiratory viral infections due to their ease of collection and decreased risk to healthcare providers. However, rapid and sensitive immunoassays have not yet been satisfactorily demonstrated for such specimens due to their viscosity and low viral loads. Using paper microfluidic chips and a smartphone-based fluorescence microscope, we developed a highly sensitive, low-cost immunofluorescence particulometric SARS-CoV-2 assay from clinical saline gargle samples. We demonstrated the limit of detection of 10 ag/μL. With easy-to-collect saline gargle samples, our clinical sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were 100%, 86%, and 93%, respectively, for n = 27 human subjects with n = 13 RT-qPCR positives.

Details

Title
Sensitive, smartphone-based SARS-CoV-2 detection from clinical saline gargle samples
Author
Breshears, Lane E 1 ; Nguyen, Brandon T 1 ; Akarapipad, Patarajarin 1 ; Sosnowski, Katelyn 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Kaarj, Kattika 2 ; Quirk, Grace 3 ; Uhrlaub, Jennifer L 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Nikolich-Žugich, Janko 4 ; Worobey, Michael 3 ; Yoon, Jeong-Yeol  VIAFID ORCID Logo 

1  Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Arizona , Tucson, AZ 85721 , USA 
2  Department of Biosystems Engineering, The University of Arizona ,Tucson, AZ 85721, USA 
3  Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of Arizona , Tucson, AZ 85721 , USA 
4  Department of Immunobiology, The University of Arizona College of Medicine ,Tucson, AZ 85724, USA 
Publication year
2022
Publication date
Mar 2022
Publisher
Oxford University Press
e-ISSN
27526542
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac028
ProQuest document ID
3191346778
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the National Academy of Sciences. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.