Session: Analytical Division Poster:

The vital need for rapid point-of-care (POC) diagnostic tests has led to extensive research in developing new assay technologies. Lateral flow assays (LFA) are one of the most commonly used assay formats for POC diagnostics which is well known for the use in home pregnancy tests. Persistent luminescent nanophosphors (PLNPs) are more promising to be used as optical reporters in LFAs because of several advantages such as higher sensitivity, resistance to photobleaching, and eliminating the need for sophisticated and expensive instrumentation compared to the other commonly used reporters such as gold nanoparticles and quantum dots. In this study, rare earth doped PLNPs were used as reporters in LFAs and the assay was coupled with the smartphone-based imaging technique to develop it as a simple, fast, and inexpensive POC test with high sensitivity. Green-emitting SrAl₂O₄:Eu²⁺,Dy³⁺ and blue-emitting (Sr_0.625Ba_0.375)₂MgSi₂O₇:Eu²⁺,Dy³⁺ were functionalized with antibodies and incorporated them in a single LFA for the simultaneous detection of two model analytes; prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). This multiplex assay shows excellent detection limits (0.1 ng/mL of PSA and 1 ng/mL of hCG) that are competitive with commercially available LFAs and the multiplex detection helps to reduce the sample time and cost and to improve the diagnostic precision. This multiplex assay format also has other applications such as food and agriculture testing and environmental testing.

Richard Willson

Univ of Houston

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