The Love Wave Immunosensor for Detecting the Pneumonia Biomarker Procalcitonin (PCT)

Pneumonia refers to infectious inflammation of the pulmonary parenchyma caused by bacterial, viral, and other pathogens. The early screening and identification of the pathogen is essential to the treatment for pneumonia patients. Procalcitonin (PCT) is an acute parameter used to distinguish between bacterial and non-bacterial inflammation. Besides, PCT is clearly correlated with the severity and prognosis of systemic infections such as inflammatory response syndrome, community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), and septic shock (some severe COVID-19 patients will present septic shock symptoms). In this study, we develop an 8-channel automated device based on the Love-type surface acoustic wave sensor to detect PCT, especially in exhaled breath condensates (EBC) of pneumonia patients. This immunosensor is mainly based on SPA self-assembly layer and the sandwich immunoassay. Besides, the signal is amplified by AuNPs and immunogold staining. The initial results show that the Love-SAW immunosensor has a good linear range of PCT detection from 15.62–500 ng/mL (R2 = 0.9703) and the limits of detection (LOD) is 0.85 ng/ml. This high-throughput device based on Love-SAW immunosensor is expected to rapidly detect multiple pneumonia biomarkers including PCT, providing valuable guidance for the diagnosis and prognosis of pneumonia.