http://english.cas.cn/newsroom/research-news/202603/t20260316_1152735.shtml
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.analchem.5c07520
A team from the CAS Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology has developed a Tip Optofluidic Immunoassay Interferon-Gamma Release Assay (TOI-IGRA), which could improve how people monitor their immune health.
Evaluating T-cell responses is vital to understanding cellular immunity against intracellular threats such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis and SARS-CoV-2. Antibody measurements are common, but they do not provide the full picture of long-term protection that T-cells offers. The IGRA typically requires large volumes of venous blood and expensive laboratory infrastructure, restricting its application in community clinics or resource-limited settings.
The TOI-IGRA platform integrates the sensitive TOI biosensing system with a specialized micro-volume stimulation protocol. By optimizing the anticoagulation and dilution processes using a 0.9% NaCl environment, the researchers demonstrated that fingertip blood preserved an immune cell composition almost identical to that of venous blood. The platform allows for the precise quantification of pathogen-specific T-cell responses using a mere 15-25 μL of fingertip blood.
By combining T-cell functional analysis with quantitative antibody assays, the platform can simultaneously evaluate both cellular and humoral protection from the same micro-sample.
