Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the most contagious and lethal infectious diseases that affects more than 10 million individuals worldwide. A lack of rapid TB diagnosis is partly responsible for its alarming spread and prevalence in many regions. To address this problem, we report a novel integrated point-of-care platform to detect a TB-causative bacterium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). This leverages loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) for Mtb-DNA amplification and the screen-printed graphene electrode (SPGE) for label-free electrochemical analysis of DNA amplicons. When implemented on a portable potentiostat device developed in-house, the system (LAMP-EC) offers a rapid end-point qualitative analysis of specific DNA amplicons that will be displayed as a discrete positive/negative readout on the LCD screen. Under optimized conditions, LAMP-EC showed a comparable detection limit to the previously developed LAMP assay with a lateral flow readout at 1 pg total DNA or 40 Mtb genome equivalents. This highly specific technique detected the presence of TB in all 104 blinded sputum samples with a 100% accuracy. Our technique can also easily be clinically adopted due to its affordability (∼USD2.5/test), rapidity (<65 min turnaround time) and feasibility (lack of advanced instrumental requirement). This serves as a practical incentive, appealing to users in both high- and low-resource settings across the TB endemic regions and economic backgrounds.
Keywords: Graphene; LAMP-EC; Mini-potentiostat; Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Screen-printed electrode.
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