SMART: A Swing-Assisted Multiplexed Analyzer for Point-of-Care Respiratory Tract Infection Testing

• Published in: Biosensors (Basel) 2023-02, Vol.13 (2), p.228
• Main Authors: Zhang, Li, Wang, Xu, Liu, Dongchen, Wu, Yu, Feng, Li, Han, Chunyan, Liu, Jiajia, Lu, Ying, Sotnikov, Dmitriy V, Xu, Youchun, Cheng, Jing
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acceleration; Adhesives; Analytical instruments; Automation; Bacteria; Chip formation; Coronaviruses; Cost analysis; COVID-19; Diagnosis; Disease transmission; Enzymes; Epidemics; Equipment and supplies; Gene amplification; Health aspects; Health risks; Infections; LAMP; microfluidics; Molecular diagnostic techniques; multiplexed detection; Multiplexing; Nucleic acids; Pandemics; Pathogens; point-of-care; Public health; Reagents; Respiratory tract; Respiratory tract diseases; Respiratory tract infection; Respiratory tract infections; SARS-CoV-2; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Streptococcus infections; Viral diseases
• ISSN: 2079-6374; 2079-6374
• DOI: 10.3390/bios13020228

Respiratory tract infections such as the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has seriously threatened public health in the last decades. The experience of fighting against the epidemic highlights the importance of user-friendly and accessible point-of-care systems for nucleic acid (NA) detection. To realize low-cost and multiplexed point-of-care NA detection, a swing-assisted multiplexed analyzer for point-of-care respiratory tract infection testing (SMART) was proposed to detect multiple respiratory tract pathogens using visible loop-mediated isothermal amplification. By performing hand-swing movements to generate acceleration force to distribute samples into reaction chambers, the design of the SMART system was greatly simplified. By using different format of chips and integrating into a suitcase, this system can be applied to on-site multitarget and multi-sample testing. Three targets including the N and Orf genes of SARS-CoV-2 and the internal control were simultaneously analyzed (limit of detection: 2000 copies/mL for raw sample; 200 copies/mL for extracted sample). Twenty-three clinical samples with eight types of respiratory bacteria and twelve COVID-19 clinical samples were successfully detected. These results indicate that the SMART system has the potential to be further developed as a versatile tool in the diagnosis of respiratory tract infection.