Sensitive Dual Electrochemical-Colorimetric Point-of-Care (POC) Sensor for the Rapid Detection of Mycoplasma pneumoniae

Abstract

Mycoplasma pneumoniae (M. pneumoniae) is a problem affecting the health of children and adolescents worldwide. Thus, there is a pressing need to construct a point-of-care (POC) method for the rapid detection of M. pneumoniae. In this work, a sensitive dual electrochemical-colorimetric POC sensor was constructed based on reduced graphene oxide (RGO) and a polyaniline (PANI) modified surface for the rapid diagnosis of M. pneumoniae. The POC sensor showed excellent performance with a sensitivity of 69.78 mV/pH. The pH measurement was minimally affected in the presence of interfering ions and the durability of the electrochemical sensor was 2.54 mV/d. The device was sensitive for M. pneumoniae from 10² copies/reaction to 10⁵ copies/reaction and satisfactorily validated in 18 clinical specimens. The entire nucleic acid extraction and detection process was completed within 30 min which was 9 minutes less than the commercial fluorescence and colorimetric kits. More interestingly, the results were monitored by the electrochemical signal and solution color change. The results are expected to have a positive impact on the quantitative detection of M. pneumoniae and allow the rapid diagnosis of M. pneumoniae infections.

Keywords:

• Dual electrochemical-colorimetric sensor
• Mycoplasma pneumoniae
• point-of-care (POC)

Authors’ contributions

Qian Gao performed the experiments; Qian Gao, Qi Li, and Yang Li analyzed the data; Chao Shi and Cuiping Ma designed the experimental scheme; Qian Gao wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to the writing of the paper and had responsibility for the final content and read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there are no competing interests associated with the manuscript.

Ethical approval

The Human Health and Ethics Committee of the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University approved this study and all the donors of nasopharyngeal swabs provided informed consent. In addition, all methods were carried out in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations.

Data availability statement

The data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

We highly appreciate the Science and Technology Benefiting the People Demonstration Project of Qingdao (22-2-7-smjk-2-nsh), the financial support of the Major Scientific and Technological Innovation Projects of Shandong Province (2022SFXGFY01), and the Key Project of Shandong Province Natural Science Foundation (ZR2020KH030).