Electrochemical immunosensor detection of urinary lactoferrin in clinical samples for urinary tract infection diagnosis.

Urine is the most abundant and easily accessible of all body fluids and provides an ideal route for non-invasive diagnosis of human diseases, particularly of the urinary tract. Electrochemical biosensors are well suited for urinary diagnostics due to their excellent sensitivity, low-cost, and ability to detect a wide variety of target molecules including nucleic acids and protein biomarkers. We report the development of an electrochemical immunosensor for direct detection of the urinary tract infection (UTI) biomarker lactoferrin from infected clinical samples. An electrochemical biosensor array with alkanethiolate self-assembled monolayer (SAM) was used. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was used to characterize the mixed SAM, consisted of 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid and 6-mercapto-1-hexanol. A sandwich amperometric immunoassay was developed for detection of lactoferrin from urine, with a detection limit of 145 pg/ml. We validated lactoferrin as a biomarker of pyuria (presence of white blood cells in urine), an important hallmark of UTI, in 111 patient-derived urine samples. Finally, we demonstrated multiplex detection of urinary pathogens and lactoferrin through simultaneous detection of bacterial nucleic acid (16S rRNA) and host immune response protein (lactoferrin) on a single sensor array. Our results represent first integrated sensor platform capable of quantitative pathogen identification and measurement of host immune response, potentially providing clinical diagnosis that is not only more expeditious but also more informative than the current standard.