SURFACE PLASMON RESONANCE IMMUNOSENSOR FOR RAPID AND SPECIFIC DIAGNOSIS OF MELIOIDOSIS ANTIBODY

Melioidosis, caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei, is a potentially fatal disease, which requires an accurate and rapid diagnosis. This paper reports on the highly sensitive and specific detection of melioidosis antibodies by surface plasmon resonance immunosensor. The sensing surface was immobilized with B. pseudomallei BipD protein via a 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid self-assembled monolayer. Under optimum conditions individual sera of melioidosis patients, non-melioidosis patients (negative) and blood donors (control) were analyzed at a dilution of 1:6,000 in 10 mM phosphate buffered saline pH 7.50. The cut-off value determined from the mean +/- 2SD of 20 control and 20 negative sera was 3.3 m degrees. At this cut-off both sensitivity and specificity were 100%. The system required only a short analysis (20 minutes) and regeneration time (12 minutes). In addition, one immobilization of the sensing surface could be reused more than 30 times. The advantages of the proposed method are savings in both time and cost of analysis, while at the same time providing excellent sensitivity and specificity.