Nanosensors based on LSPR are able to serologically differentiate dengue from Zika infections
Alice F. Versiani, Estefânia M. N. Martins, Lídia M. Andrade, Laura Cox, Glauco Carvalho Pereira, Edel Figueiredo Barbosa‐Stancioli, Maurício Lacerda Nogueira, Luiz O. Ladeira, Flávio Guimarães da Fonseca
Abstract
The Flaviviridae virus family was named after the Yellow-fever virus, and the latin term flavi means "of golden color". Dengue, caused by Dengue virus (DENV), is one of the most important infectious diseases worldwide. A sensitive and differential diagnosis is crucial for patient management, especially due to the occurrence of serological cross-reactivity to other co-circulating flaviviruses. This became particularly important with the emergence of Zika virus (ZIKV) in areas were DENV seroprevalence was already high. We developed a sensitive and specific diagnostic test based on gold nanorods (GNR) functionalized with DENV proteins as nanosensors. These were able to detect as little as one picogram of anti-DENV monoclonal antibodies and highly diluted DENV-positive human sera. The nanosensors could differentiate DENV-positive sera from other flavivirus-infected patients, including ZIKV, and were even able to distinguish which DENV serotype infected individual patients. Readouts are obtained in ELISA-plate spectrophotometers without the need of specific devices.