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Updated: Jun 30, 2025

Author Spotlight: Development of a Smartphone-Enhanced Paper-Based Device for Rapid Dengue NS1 Detection
Published on: January 26, 2024
Urinary dengue NS1 detection on Au-decorated ZnO nanowire platform
Kannika Sitthisuwannakul1, Ratchanon Sukthai2, Zetao Zhu3
1Department of Biomolecular Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8603, Japan; Department of Life Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Nagatsuta 4259, Midori-ku, Yokohama, 226-8501, Japan.
Abstract:
Biodetection for non-invasive diagnostics of fluids, especially urine, remains a challenge to scientists due to low target concentrations. And biological complexes of the detection target may contain contaminants that also interfere with any assay. Dengue non-structural 1 protein (Dengue NS1) is an important biomarker for dengue hemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome. Here, we developed an Au-decorated nanowire platform and applied it with a sandwich fluorophore-linked immunosorbent well plate assay (FLISA) to detect Dengue NS1 in urine. For the platform, we fabricated zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires to provide a high surface area and then coated them with gold nanoparticles (ZnO/Au nanowires) to simply modify the Dengue NS1 antibody and enhance the fluorescence intensity. Our platform employs a sandwich FLISA that exhibits high sensitivity, specifically detecting Dengue NS1 with a limit of detection (LOD) of 1.35 pg/mL. This LOD was 4500-fold lower than the LOD of a commercially available kit for Dengue NS1 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. We believe that our ZnO/Au nanowire platform has the potential to revolutionize the field of non-invasive diagnostics for dengue.

