A manual and portable centrifuge combined with a paper-based immunoassay for myocardial infarction diagnosis

• Published in: Chemical engineering journal (Lausanne, Switzerland : 1996) Vol. 409; p. 128131
• Main Authors: Yuan, Hao, Tsai, Tsung-Ting, Wang, Hsin-Po, Chien, Yuh-Shiuan, Chen, Chung-An, Chu, Chin-Chou, Ho, Chien-Te, Chu, Pao-Hsien, Chen, Chien-Fu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.04.2021
• Subjects: Blood plasma separation; Centrifuge; Myocardial infarction; Paper-based microfluidics; Myocardial infarction; Centrifuge; Paper-based microfluidics; Blood plasma separation
• ISSN: 1385-8947; 1873-3212
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2020.128131

•A portable centrifuge for blood plasma separation by manually rotating hand crank with relatively high separation efficiency.•Boycott effect was applied to optimize the separation time and separation efficiency.•A plasma yields as high as 47.1% and a purity of 99.9% can be achieved in just 150 s.•Myocardial infarction disease biomarker, troponin I, can be detection with a detection limit as low as 0.03 ng/mL. Myocardial infarction (MI) causes hundreds of thousands of deaths annually. Early diagnosis of MI by detecting the concentration of troponin I in plasma can help limit mortality rates. However, plasma separation and early diagnosis are particularly difficult to achieve in resource-limited settings. In this study, we demonstrate a manual and portable centrifuge along with a paper analytical device to measure troponin I for early MI diagnosis. With this so-called “Handfuge,” pure plasma can be achieved with a yield of up to 47.1% and purity as high as 99.9% in less than 3 min without electricity. The resulting plasma can then be directly used for detecting troponin I using a paper-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), with a detection limit as low as 0.03 ng/mL. The whole detection process consumes just 10 µL of blood, which is similar to the volume obtained by a clinical finger-prick. The proposed centrifuge together with the paper analytical device possesses the potential to replace existing techniques in troponin I detection for early MI diagnoses in resource-limited regions of the world.