@article{176214a4fd254e37965fc9ab360ddaab,
title = "Enhancement of lateral flow assay performance by electromagnetic relocation of reporter particles",
abstract = "Lateral flow assays (LFAs) are a widely-used point-of care diagnostic format, but suffer from limited analytical sensitivity, especially when read by eye. It has recently been reported that LFA performance can be improved by using magnetic reporter particles and an external magnetic field applied at the test line. The mechanism of sensitivity/performance enhancement was suggested to be concentration/retardation of reporter particles at the test line. Here we demonstrate an additional mechanism of particle relocation where reporter particles from the lower depths of the translucent LFA strip relocate to more-visible locations nearer to the top surface, producing a more visible signal. With a magnetic field we observed an improvement in sensitivity of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) detection from 1.25 ng/mL to 0.31 ng/mL. We also observed an increase of the color intensity per particle in test lines when the magnetic field was present.",
keywords = "Antibodies/immunology, Chorionic Gonadotropin/analysis, Electromagnetic Fields, Limit of Detection, Serum Albumin, Bovine/analysis",
author = "Jacinto, {Maria Jo{\~a}o} and Trabuco, {Jo{\~a}o R.C.} and Vu, {Binh V.} and Gavin Garvey and Mohammad Khodadady and Azevedo, {Ana M.} and Aires-Barros, {Maria Raquel} and Long Chang and Katerina Kourentzi and Dmitri Litvinov and Willson, {Richard C.}",
note = "Funding Information: RCW and DL gratefully acknowledge support from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, http://www.niaid.nih.gov, (Grant 1R21AI111120-01A1), National Science Foundation, www.nsf.gov, (Grant CBET-1511789) and Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas, www.cprit.state.tx.us, (Grant RP150343). MJJ, JRCT and AMA acknowledge Funda{\c c}{\~a}o para Ci{\^e}ncia e Tecnologia (FCT), http://www.fct.pt, for the PhD grants PD/BD/ 105883/2014 and SFRH/BD/91099/2012, and research contract under the program “Investigador FCT 2014” (IF/00048/2014/CP1214/CT0010), respectively. The Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences also acknowledges FCT for funding through the research contract (UID/BIO/04565/ 2013). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018 Jacinto et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.",
year = "2018",
month = jan,
doi = "10.1371/journal.pone.0186782",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "13",
pages = "e0186782",
journal = "PLoS ONE",
issn = "1932-6203",
publisher = "Public Library of Science",
number = "1",
}