Household Fluorescent Lateral Flow Strip Platform for Sensitive and Quantitative Prognosis of Heart Failure Using...

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Nanotechnology
• Cardiovascular Diagnostics

Background:

• Heart failure (HF) presents significant mortality and readmission challenges.
• Early diagnosis and real-time prognosis are crucial for effective HF management.
• Current diagnostic methods may lack the accessibility required for continuous home monitoring.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a sensitive and quantitative household prognosis platform for heart failure.
• To integrate a smartphone-based reader with multiplexed upconversion fluorescent lateral flow strips (LFS).
• To enable simultaneous quantification of key HF biomarkers, brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and suppression of tumorigenicity 2 (ST2).

Main Methods:

• Synthesis of dual-color core-shell upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) as probes.
• Development of a multiplexed upconversion fluorescent lateral flow strip (LFS) for antigen detection.
• Integration with a smartphone-based reader and analysis application for rapid quantification and data sharing.

Main Results:

• Achieved highly sensitive detection limits for BNP (5 pg/mL) and ST2 (1 ng/mL) in spiked samples, surpassing clinical cutoffs.
• Demonstrated successful detection of BNP and ST2 in 38 clinical serum samples.
• Exhibited good linear correlation with FDA-approved clinical methods, confirming platform reliability and stability.

Conclusions:

• The developed UC-LFS platform provides highly sensitive and specific sample-to-answer prognosis for HF.
• This platform holds significant potential for at-home risk assessment and health monitoring of post-treatment HF patients.
• The integration of UCNPs and smartphone technology offers a promising approach for decentralized cardiovascular disease management.