Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have made a new biosensor from carbon-nanotube transistors that is capable of rapidly detecting the antigens of Lyme disease.
Deer tick - Carrier of Lyme disease
Lyme disease often goes unchecked especially in its early stages because the symptoms are non-specific and because of a lack of sensitive tests to diagnose the disease.
The device can detect the biomarkers at concentrations as low as 1 ng/ml, which is better than is possible with standard urine testing and comparable to traditional ELISA and Western-blot immunoassays.
Lyme disease occurs throughout much of the northern hemisphere and is spread by ticks carrying the Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium. At least 30,000 new cases are reported in the US alone each year with Lyme disease affecting horses, humans, and other animals.
The disease often goes unchecked – especially in its early stages – because the symptoms are so non-specific and because of a lack of sensitive tests. Late detection can be dangerous, however, because the disease can cause arthritis and even permanent neurological disorders, among other health problems.
Now, a team led by A T Charlie Johnson of the University of Pennsylvania has made a new Lyme-disease biosensor from large arrays of semiconducting carbon nanotube (CNT) transistors grown by chemical vapour deposition on oxidized silicon wafers.
"Using a covalent-chemistry technique developed in our lab, we are able to attach antibody proteins to the nanotubes very efficiently," explains Johnson. "These antibodies have a high affinity for the antigen protein of interest – p42 flagellar – which is a protein from the flagellum of the bacterium that carries Lyme disease.
If this Lyme antigen is present in a sample, it gets captured by the antibodies, something which induces a change in the electronic properties of the nanotube transistors."
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends a two-tiered testing approach for Lyme disease," he explains. "The first tier is an ELISA assay, but this test can produce a false negative if the patient has a disease similar to Lyme.
More importantly, it cannot distinguish between Lyme antibodies caused by a current, active Lyme infection and those caused by past, treated infections."
The second-tier test is a Western blot, which tests specifically for Borrelia burgdorferi. Using Western blot on its own is more likely to lead to a false positive, resulting in inaccurate diagnosis and unnecessary treatment for a patient whose true disease may continue to afflict them.
"Our protein–nanotube hybrids overcome both these problems because they look directly for Lyme antibodies. This means that there is no lag between infection and detection (as in ELISA), and no danger of confusing current and past infections because the antigens will only be present if the Borrelia is active," says Johnson.
There is still much work to be done before the technology becomes commercially available; however, Johnson says that, luckily, there are several organizations that are already "very interested" in the group's research. "An important next step is to develop methods to detect Lyme antigens in complicated real-word samples, such as human blood. Subsequent steps will include animal and, finally, human clinical trials."
Read more about Lyme Disease in Horses