An Integrated Centrifugal Microfluidic Point-of-Care Low-Cost Chip for Rapid Pathogen Nucleic Acid Detection and Diagnosis of Bloodstream Infections

The rapid diagnosis of bloodstream infections is essential for guiding targeted treatment, reducing antibiotic resistance, and improving patient outcomes. We report an integrated centrifugal microfluidic point-of-care low-cost chip for simultaneous detection of six types of pathogen nucleic acid in 50 min. All of the reagents were prestored in dry powder form inside the microfluidic chip for real-time fluorescence loop-mediated isothermal amplification. Through a simple lysis and dilution process, clinically positive blood culture samples from patients can be loaded into the microfluidic chip for pathogen nucleic acid identification. The developed method demonstrated high consistency with the standard method used by the hospital in the testing of 120 clinical patient samples. It is envisioned that this work may provide a useful platform for rapid diagnosis of bloodstream infections by identification of pathogen nucleic acid.