Lyme Disease Biosensors: A Potential Solution to a Diagnostic Dilemma

Abstract

Over the past four decades, Lyme disease has remained a virulent and pervasive illness, persisting throughout North America and many other regions of the world. Recent increases in illness in many countries has sparked a renewed interest in improved Lyme diagnostics. While current standards of diagnosis are acceptable for the late stages of the disease, it remains difficult to accurately diagnose early forms of the illness. In addition, current diagnostic methods tend to be relatively expensive and require a large degree of laboratory-based analysis. Biosensors represent the fusion of biological materials with chemical techniques to provide simple, inexpensive alternatives to traditional diagnostic methods. Lyme disease biosensors have the potential to better diagnose early stages of the illness and provide possible patients with an inexpensive, commercially available test. This review examines the current state of Lyme disease biosensing, with a focus on previous biosensor development and essential future considerations.

Keywords: Lyme disease; biosensor; diagnostics; infectious disease; point-of-care.

Figure 1

The mChip-Ld system showing (a) the microfluidic device and the order of buffers which are added to it, as well as the benchtop analyzer it is inserted into (b) the ordered binding of reagents and molecules within the detection zone. Reprinted from ref [32], which is open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Figure 2

Graphene-based Field Effect Transistor (GFET) sensor showing (a) sensor array containing 100 GFET units, (b) optical micrograph of a single unit (c) visualization of the GFET with attached scFv binding to antigen. Reprinted from ref [37], with permission from IOP Publishing.

Figure 3

Vertical Flow Assay (VFA) device showing (a) assembled device relative to an American quarter (b) the general assay procedure, from sample addition to eventual sample color generation. Reprinted from ref [41], with permission from the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Figure 4

Microfluidic protein biochip showing (A) biochip device with overlying microfluidic window (B) illustration of antigen-antibody binding process with Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR)-enhanced fluorescence (C) fluorescent image of an antibody-bound biochip. Reprinted from ref [47], which is open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.