Paper-based point-of-care immunoassays: Recent advances and emerging trends

Abstract

Immunoassay has been routinely used in hospitals and central labs. Nowadays, to further meet the requirement of widespread applications of immunoassays, it is urgently needed to produce a simplified, rapid and low-cost immunoassay to perform tests on site. To this end, paper-based point-of-care (POC) immunoassays have attracted intensive interests in recent years. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of the recent advances and emerging trends of paper-based POC immunoassays, including the fundamental components and work principles, various detection mechanisms and applications, and existing commercialized devices/products. At last, we envision three promising development directions for paper-based POC immunoassays.

Keywords: Immunoassays; Lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA); Microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (μPADs); Nanoparticles; Point-of-care testing (POCT).