A Lab-in-a-briefcase for rapid prostate specific antigen (PSA) screening from whole blood

Barbosa, A. I., Castanheira, A. P., Edwards, A. D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2369-989X and Reis, N. M. (2014) A Lab-in-a-briefcase for rapid prostate specific antigen (PSA) screening from whole blood. Lab on a Chip, 14 (16). pp. 2918-2928. ISSN 1473-0197 doi: 10.1039/C4LC00464G

Abstract/Summary

We present a new concept for rapid and fully portable Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) measurement, termed “Lab-in-a-Briefcase”, which integrates an affordable microfluidic ELISA platform utilising a melt-extruded fluoropolymer Micro Capillary Film (MCF) containing 10 bore, 200 μm internal diameter capillaries, a disposable multi-syringe aspirator (MSA) plus a sample tray pre-loaded with all required immunoassay reagents, and a portable film scanner for colorimetric signal digital quantitation. Each MSA can perform 10 replicate microfluidic immunoassays on 8 samples, allowing 80measurements to be made in less than 15 minutes based on semi-automated operation and norequirement of additional fluid handling equipment. An assay was optimised for measurement of a clinically relevant range of PSA from 0.9 to 60.0 ng/ml in 15 minutes with CVs in the order of 5% based on intra-assay variability when read using a consumer flatbed film scanner. The PSA assay performance in the MSA remained robust in the presence of undiluted or 1:2 diluted human serum or whole blood, and the matrix effect could simply be overcome by extending sample incubation times. The PSA "Lab-in-a-briefcase" is particularly suited to a low-resource health setting where diagnostic labs and automated immunoassay systems are not accessible, by allowing PSA measurement outside the laboratory using affordable equipment.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/37050
Identification Number/DOI	10.1039/C4LC00464G
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Chemistry, Food and Pharmacy > School of Pharmacy > Pharmaceutics Research Group
Publisher	Royal Society of Chemistry
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