Point-of-care testing system for digital single cell detection of MRSA directly from nasal swabs

Abstract: We present an automated point-of-care testing (POCT) system for rapid detection of species- and resistance markers in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) at the level of single cells, directly from nasal swab samples. Our novel system allows clear differentiation between MRSA, methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (MSSA) and methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative staphylococci (MR-CoNS), which is not the case for currently used real-time quantitative PCR based systems. On top, the novel approach outcompetes the culture-based methods in terms of its short time-to-result (1 h vs. up to 60 h) and reduces manual labor. The walk-away test is fully automated on the centrifugal microfluidic LabDisk platform. The LabDisk cartridge comprises the unit operations swab-uptake, reagent pre-storage, distribution of the sample into 20 000 droplets, specific enzymatic lysis of Staphylococcus spp. and recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) of species (vicK) – and resistance (mecA) -markers. LabDisk actuation, incubation and multi-channel fluorescence detection is demonstrated with a clinical isolate and spiked nasal swab samples down to a limit of detection (LOD) of 3 ± 0.3 CFU μl−1 for MRSA. The novel approach of the digital single cell detection is suggested to improve hospital admission screening, timely decision making, and goal-oriented antibiotic therapy. The implementation of a higher degree of multiplexing is required to translate the results into clinical practice

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Lab on a chip. - 20, 14 (2020) , 2549-2561, ISSN: 1473-0189

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Freiburg
• (who): Universität
• (when): 2020
• Creator: Schulz, Martin ; Calabrese, Silvia ; Serr, Annerose ; Häcker, Georg ; Li, Jia ; Zengerle, Roland ; Stetten, Felix von ; Paust, Nils ; Borst, Nadine

Further information

• DOI: 10.1039/D0LC00294A
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:25-freidok-1671665
• Rights: Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:48 AM CEST