To initially characterize nitrocellulose as an optimal substrate for fluorescent signal detection of antibodies

Point-of-care (POC) diagnostics tools provide lowcost methods of disease detection in low resource settings. Our current platform detects antibodies in serum to recombinant protein biomarkers on glass substrate. Most commercial POC tests utilize nitrocellulose lateral flow format with colorimetric detection. Nitrocellulose enables fluid handling, serum filtration, better protein immobilization, rapid detection time, and affordability. Colorimetry limits sensitivity and provides only qualitative results. We aim to use fluorescent-based detection on a nitrocellulose lateral flow format to achieve higher sensitivity and semi-quantitative results to detect cervical cancer biomarkers. As a model, an EBNA-1 assay is used to evaluate nitrocellulose as a substrate for multi-step fluorescent-based detection of antibodies in serum.