Carbohydrate binding module-fused antibodies improve the performance of cellulose-based lateral flow immunoassays

Abstract Since the pandemic outbreak of Covid-19 in December 2019, several lateral flow assay (LFA) devices were developed to enable constant monitoring regional and global infection processes. Additionally, innumerable test are frequently used for determination different clinical parameters, food safety, environmental factors. common LFAs rely on non-biodegradable nitrocellulose membranes, we focused their replacement by cellulose-composed, biodegradable papers. We report development cellulose paper-based immunoassays using a carbohydrate-binding module-fused detection antibodies. Studies regarding protein binding capacity potential wash-off effects paper demonstrated 2.7-fold CBM-fused antibody fragments compared sole fragment. Furthermore, this strategy improved spatial retention antibodies area, which resulted an enhanced sensitivity overall LFA-performance naked antibody. CBM-assisted validated implementation into two model (pregnancy SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies). The pregnancy LFA sensitive human gonadotropin (hCG) synthetic urine was able detect present serum. Our findings pave way more frequent use cellulose-based papers instead thus potentially improve sustainability field POC diagnostics.