Rapid Screening and Diagnosis Protocol for Malaria Based on Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy and Multivariate Data Analysis
摘要
Malaria, a severe illness caused by Plasmodium parasites, remains a significant global health concern, impacting millions of people every year. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (RS) is a reliable and efficient method for rapid and robust detection and diagnosis of different types of diseases. In this work, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) of the blood serum samples is demonstrated as an effective tool for distinguishing biochemical changes associated with the malaria infections caused by different species including Plasmodium vivax (PV), Plasmodium falciparum (PF), or by both (PV and PF). Moreover, these disease samples are differentiated from healthy serum samples on the basis of characteristic SERS spectral features. The SERS analysis, of serum samples, revealed significant spectral peaks corresponding to key malaria biomarkers, including proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, amino acids, and nucleic acids, reflecting the metabolic and structural impact of PV and PF infections providing a clear bio-molecular profile of malarial infection. Furthermore, multivariate data analysis technique like principal component analysis (PCA) were applied to effectively differentiate between healthy and infected samples. PCA efficiently enabled qualitative differentiation and dimensionality reduction.