Protein Microarray-Guided Development of a Highly Sensitive and Specific Dipstick Assay for Glanders Serodiagnostics
Gabriel E. Wagner, Andreas Berner, Michaela Lipp, Christian Köhler, Karoline Assig, Sabine Lichtenegger, Muhammad Saqib, Elke Müller, Trịnh Thành Trung, Anne-Marie Gad, Hans Hermann Söffing, Ralf Ehricht, Karine Laroucau, Ivo Steinmetz
Abstract
= 14). Our array results show a sensitivity of 96.7% (confidence interval [CI] 85.5 to 99.6%) and a specificity of 100.0% (CI, 95.4 to 100.0%). The reactivity pattern of the positive sera on our array test allowed us to identify a set of 12 highly reactive proteins of interest for glanders diagnosis. The B. mallei variants of the three best protein candidates were selected for the development of a novel dipstick assay. Our point-of-care test detected glanders cases in less than 15 min with a sensitivity of 90.0% (CI, 75.7 to 97.1%) and a specificity of 100.0% (CI, 95.4 to 100.0%). The microarray and dipstick can easily be adopted for the diagnosis of both B. mallei and B. pseudomallei infections in different animals. Future studies will show whether multiplex serological testing has the potential to differentiate between these pathogens.