The development of graphene oxide sheet- and polyanilino-immunosensor systems for lipoarabinomannan (LAM) tuberculosis biomarker

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease with adverse effect on a global scale. The disease is one of the major causes of death in sub-Saharan Africa. Nearly 70% of TB-infected persons are co-infected by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). About 50% of TB/HIV patients are smear negative and up to 28% are sputum scarce, which is a significant problem in South Africa since sputum smear microscopy is the most widely used diagnostic test for TB. The detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) and resistance to the TB drug rifampicin (RIF) are the basis of the GeneXpert MTB/RIF protocol. The GeneXpert MTB/RIF is an automated nucleic acid amplification technique for detecting the DNA that originates from MTB. However, low sensitivity and low concentrations of MTB for DNA amplification are a serious issue associated with the protocol. Therefore, other TB diagnostic methods, such as the ones involving biochemical markers of TB, are becoming very important.