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Published on: February 25, 2020
DNA framework signal amplification platform-based high-throughput systemic immune monitoring
Ye Chen1, Xingyu Chen1, Bowen Zhang2
1State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases, National Center for Stomatology, National Clinical Research Center for Oral Diseases, West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, Sichuan, PR China.
Insights
A new DNA framework signal amplification platform (DSAP) enables rapid, cost-effective immune cell phenotyping. This high-throughput system offers comparable accuracy to flow cytometry for early disease diagnosis and monitoring, like in HIV patients.
Area of Science:
- Biotechnology
- Immunology
- Nanotechnology
Background:
- Systemic immune monitoring is vital for disease diagnosis and prognosis but conventional methods like flow cytometry are time-consuming, costly, and not suitable for large-scale screening.
- The absence of high-performance detection platforms impedes the development of high-throughput immune monitoring technologies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a novel, high-throughput immune-cell phenotyping system to overcome the limitations of conventional methods.
- To establish a DNA framework signal amplification platform (DSAP) for sensitive and rapid detection of diverse immune cells.
Main Methods:
- Construction of a DNA framework signal amplification platform (DSAP) utilizing systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment and DNA tetrahedral framework-structured probes.
- Development of a one-step immune-cell phenotyping system achieving detection in 30 minutes without cell washing or subset analysis.
Main Results:
- DSAP achieved high-sensitive detection of immune cells (CD4+, CD8+ T-lymphocytes, monocytes) down to 1/100 μl.
- The DSAP system demonstrated comparable accuracy to flow cytometry while significantly reducing detection time and cost.
- In a proof-of-concept study, DSAP showed excellent diagnostic accuracy (AUC > 0.97) for immunodeficiency staging in 107 HIV patients within 30 minutes.
Conclusions:
- DSAP offers a promising solution for high-throughput immune monitoring, enabling rapid and accurate immune cell analysis.
- The developed platform facilitates early disease diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment planning, with potential applications in HIV monitoring and screening.
- DSAP opens robust routes for the development of point-of-care diagnostic devices for immune monitoring.
Abstract:
Systemic immune monitoring is a crucial clinical tool for disease early diagnosis, prognosis and treatment planning by quantitative analysis of immune cells. However, conventional immune monitoring using flow cytometry faces huge challenges in large-scale sample testing, especially in mass health screenings, because of time-consuming, technical-sensitive and high-cost features. However, the lack of high-performance detection platforms hinders the development of high-throughput immune monitoring technology. To address this bottleneck, we constructed a generally applicable DNA framework signal amplification platform (DSAP) based on post-systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment and DNA tetrahedral framework-structured probe design to achieve high-sensitive detection for diverse immune cells, including CD4+, CD8+ T-lymphocytes, and monocytes (down to 1/100 μl). Based on this advanced detection platform, we present a novel high-throughput immune-cell phenotyping system, DSAP, achieving 30-min one-step immune-cell phenotyping without cell washing and subset analysis and showing comparable accuracy with flow cytometry while significantly reducing detection time and cost. As a proof-of-concept, DSAP demonstrates excellent diagnostic accuracy in immunodeficiency staging for 107 HIV patients (AUC > 0.97) within 30 min, which can be applied in HIV infection monitoring and screening. Therefore, we initially introduced promising DSAP to achieve high-throughput immune monitoring and open robust routes for point-of-care device development.

