Dual Recognition Element Lateral Flow Assay Toward Multiplex Strain Specific Influenza Virus Detection

Area of Science:

• Biotechnology
• Infectious Disease Diagnostics
• Biosensing

Background:

• Influenza virus outbreaks pose significant public health and economic threats.
• Accurate and rapid strain detection is crucial for effective outbreak management.
• Current diagnostic methods have limitations in specificity and speed.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a novel dual recognition element lateral flow assay (DRELFA) for specific influenza virus strain detection.
• To combine nucleic acid aptamers and antibodies to overcome individual limitations in specificity and kinetics.
• To create a point-of-care platform for rapid and sensitive influenza diagnostics.

Main Methods:

• Development of a DRELFA integrating aptamers and antibodies for influenza detection.
• Testing DRELFA's ability to discriminate between influenza strains and other respiratory pathogens.
• Validation using quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) to assess analyte localization and signal correlation.

Main Results:

• DRELFA demonstrated high specificity, distinguishing specific influenza strains from those of the same subtype and common respiratory diseases.
• The assay exhibited fast binding kinetics, comparable to antibody-based lateral flow assays (LFAs).
• DRELFA showed excellent analyte localization (>90%) and a strong correlation with qRT-PCR results over a 50-fold concentration range.

Conclusions:

• DRELFA offers improved specificity over traditional antibody-based LFAs for influenza detection.
• The universally applicable design of DRELFA allows for the detection of a wide range of analytes.
• This assay represents a significant advancement in point-of-care diagnostics for infectious diseases.