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Published on: December 8, 2023
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Portable SpectroChip-Based Immunoassay Platform for Rapid and Accurate Melamine Quantification in Urine Samples
Cheng-Hao Ko1, Wei-Yi Kong1, Abel Chernet Kabiso1
1Graduate Institute of Automation and Control, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 106, Taiwan.
Toxics
|January 8, 2025
Summary
A new portable device, THE ONE InstantCare, accurately detects melamine in urine within minutes. This rapid, cost-effective point-of-care solution aids in assessing health risks from melamine exposure.
Area of Science:
- Analytical Chemistry
- Biomedical Diagnostics
- Food Safety
Background:
- Melamine adulteration in food poses health risks, necessitating reliable detection methods.
- Long-term effects of chronic low-level melamine exposure require further investigation.
- Current detection methods like LC-MS are time-consuming and not suitable for point-of-care use.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce and evaluate THE ONE InstantCare platform for sensitive and accurate melamine quantification in human urine.
- To provide a rapid, cost-effective, and user-friendly point-of-care (POC) solution for melamine detection.
- To assess the platform's analytical performance, reproducibility, and reliability compared to established methods.
Main Methods:
- Development of THE ONE InstantCare platform, integrating a SpectroChip-based spectral processing unit (SPU) with lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA).
- Analytical evaluation of melamine detection across eight concentrations (0-100 ppb) in human urine.
- Validation against liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) using 24 human urine samples, including correlation and agreement analyses.
- Assessment of reproducibility (intraday and interday CV) and interference from common biological substances.
Main Results:
- Achieved a limit of detection (LOD) of 1.91 ppb for melamine.
- Demonstrated strong concordance with LC-MS: ICC of 0.9220, Pearson correlation of 0.9389, and 95% agreement in Bland-Altman analysis.
- Exhibited high reproducibility with an intraday CV of 6.53% and acceptable interday CV.
- Confirmed reliability in the presence of common biological interferents.
- Provided results in approximately 10 minutes, significantly faster than LC-MS.
Conclusions:
- THE ONE InstantCare platform offers a sensitive, accurate, rapid, and reproducible method for melamine detection in human urine.
- This portable POC device is a valuable tool for enhancing food safety surveillance and human health risk assessment, particularly for melamine-induced kidney damage.
- The platform's versatility and performance suggest potential applications in environmental monitoring and clinical diagnostics for various biomarkers.
