Rapid single-tier serodiagnosis of Lyme disease
Point-of-care serological and direct antigen testing offers actionable insights for diagnosing challenging illnesses, empowering distributed health systems. Here, we report a POC-compatible serologic test for Lyme disease (LD), leveraging synthetic peptides specific to LD antibodies and a paper-based platform for rapid, and cost-effective diagnosis. Antigenic epitopes conserved across Borrelia burgdorferi genospecies, targeted by IgG and IgM antibodies, are selected to develop a multiplexed panel for detection of LD antibodies from patient sera. Multiple peptide epitopes, when combined synergistically with a machine learning-based diagnostic model achieve high sensitivity without sacrificing specificity. Blinded validation with 15 LD-positive and 15 negative samples shows 95.5% sensitivity and 100% specificity. Blind testing with the CDC's LD repository samples confirms the test accuracy, matching lab-based two-tier results, correctly differentiating between LD and look-alike diseases. This LD diagnostic test could potentially replace the cumbersome two-tier testing, improving diagnosis and enabling earlier treatment while facilitating immune monitoring and surveillance.
Authors
- Aydogan Özcan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0717-683X)
- Barath Palanisamy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7117-2876)
- Hyou‐Arm Joung (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5106-4459)
- Elizabeth J. Horn (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5928-9652)
- Raymond J. Dattwyler (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1983-1301)
- Kevin Ngo
- Paul M. Arnaboldi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4005-4412)
- Dino Di Carlo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3942-4284)
- Omai B. Garner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7366-2692)
- Ezdehar Ghazal
- Katarina Pejcinovic (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7802-3993)
- Nicole Krockenberger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1693-1120)
- Andrew O’Kula
- Artem Goncharov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7902-5520)
- Rajesh Ghosh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7408-8944)
Institutions
- California NanoSystems Institute (US)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- New York Medical College (US)
- Biopeptide (United States) (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2024-08-20
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-51067-5
- Citations
- 24
- Primary Topic
- Vector-borne infectious diseases
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 12.37
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Bay Area Lyme Foundation
- National Institutes of Health
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention