Microelectromechanical Systems Research Unit (CMEMS-UMinho), School of Engineering, Campus de Azurém, University of Minho, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal.
LABBELS-Associate Laboratory, Braga/Guimarães, 4806-909 Guimarães, Portugal.
Biosensors (Basel). 2022 Feb 11;12(2):110. doi: 10.3390/bios12020110.
Despite being preventable and treatable, malaria still puts almost half of the world's population at risk. Thus, prompt, accurate and sensitive malaria diagnosis is crucial for disease control and elimination. Optical microscopy and immuno-rapid tests are the standard malaria diagnostic methods in the field. However, these are time-consuming and fail to detect low-level parasitemia. Biosensors and lab-on-a-chip devices, as reported to different applications, usually offer high sensitivity, specificity, and ease of use at the point of care. Thus, these can be explored as an alternative for malaria diagnosis. Alongside malaria infection inside the human red blood cells, parasites consume host hemoglobin generating the hemozoin crystal as a by-product. Hemozoin is produced in all parasite species either in symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. Furthermore, hemozoin crystals are produced as the parasites invade the red blood cells and their content relates to disease progression. Hemozoin is, therefore, a unique indicator of infection, being used as a malaria biomarker. Herein, the so-far developed biosensors and lab-on-a-chip devices aiming for malaria detection by targeting hemozoin as a biomarker are reviewed and discussed to fulfil all the medical demands for malaria management towards elimination.
尽管疟疾可以预防和治疗，但它仍使全球近一半的人口面临风险。因此，快速、准确和敏感的疟疾诊断对于疾病控制和消除至关重要。光学显微镜和免疫快速检测是现场标准的疟疾诊断方法。然而，这些方法耗时且无法检测到低水平的寄生虫血症。据报道，生物传感器和芯片实验室设备在不同的应用中具有高灵敏度、特异性和易用性，可作为疟疾诊断的替代方法。除了人类红细胞内的疟疾感染外，寄生虫还消耗宿主血红蛋白生成亚铁血红素晶体作为副产物。亚铁血红素在有症状和无症状个体中的所有寄生虫物种中都会产生。此外，亚铁血红素晶体是在寄生虫侵入红细胞时产生的，其含量与疾病进展有关。因此，亚铁血红素是感染的独特标志物，可用作疟疾生物标志物。在此，综述并讨论了迄今为止开发的旨在通过将亚铁血红素作为生物标志物检测疟疾的生物传感器和芯片实验室设备，以满足消除疟疾管理的所有医疗需求。
