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Updated: Mar 28, 2026
Development of a Lateral Flow Immunochromatographic Strip for Rapid and Quantitative Detection of Small Molecule Compounds
Published on: November 13, 2021
Sensitive biomolecule detection in lateral flow assay with a portable temperature-humidity control device
Jane Ru Choi1, Jie Hu2, Shangsheng Feng3
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Lembah Pantai, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China; Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China.
Environmental control significantly boosts lateral flow assay (LFA) sensitivity. Optimized temperature and humidity improve nucleic acid hybridization and antigen-antibody interactions for better point-of-care diagnostics.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Analytical Chemistry
- Biosensors
Background:
- Lateral flow assays (LFAs) are crucial for point-of-care (POC) diagnostics.
- Current LFAs face limitations in sensitivity and quantification.
- Environmental factors like temperature and humidity are often overlooked but impact LFA performance.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of controlled environmental conditions on LFA sensitivity.
- To optimize temperature and relative humidity (RH) for improved LFA performance.
- To enable sensitive detection of various analytes using smartphone-quantified LFAs.
Main Methods:
- Development and utilization of a portable temperature-humidity control device.
- Testing LFA performance under various controlled environmental conditions.
- Quantification of LFA results using a smartphone-based reader.
Main Results:
- Optimal conditions for nucleic acid hybridization: RH > 60% with temperatures of 55-60°C.
- Optimal conditions for antigen-antibody interaction: RH > 60% with temperatures of 37-40°C.
- Achieved a 10-fold signal enhancement for nucleic acid hybridization and a 3-fold enhancement for antigen-antibody interactions compared to ambient conditions.
Conclusions:
- Controlled environmental conditions, specifically temperature and RH, can significantly enhance LFA sensitivity.
- The developed portable device coupled with smartphone quantification offers a promising approach for sensitive POC diagnostics.
- Future integration with paper-based biosensors could lead to fully automated sample-to-answer systems for diverse analyte detection.
