Super-assembly of integrated gold magnetic assay with loopmediated isothermal amplification for point-of-care testing

With the increasing global threat of various diseases and infections,it is essential to develop a fast,low-cost,and easy-to-use point-of-care testing(POCT)system for inspections at all levels of medical institutions and self-examination at home.In this work,gold magnetic nanoparticles(GMNPs)are used as the key material,and a rapid visual detection method is designed through integrating loop-mediated isothermal amplification(LAMP)and lateral flow assay(LFA)biosensor for detecting a variety of analytes which includes whole blood,buccal swabs,and DNA.It is worth to note that the proposed method does not need DNA extraction.Furthermore,uracil DNA glycosylase(UDG)is employed to eliminate carrier contamination for preventing false positive results.The whole detection process can be finished within 25 min.The accuracy of detection is measured by assessing the polymorphisms of the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase(MTHFR)C677T.The detection limit of the newly developed extraction-free detection system for MTHFR C677T is 0.16 ng/μL.A preliminary clinical study of the proposed method is carried out by analyzing 600 clinical samples(including 200 whole blood samples,100 buccal swabs,and 300 genomic DNA samples).The results indicate that the proposed method is 100%consistent with the sequencing results which provides a new choice for POCT and shows a broad application prospect in all levels of medical clinics and at home.

Transcriptome dysregulation in hyper-progressive disease samples with immune checkpoint blockade

To the Editor:Tumor immunotherapy has made rapid progress in recent years.However,immune checkpoint blockade(ICB)therapy may cause clinical symptoms of hyper-progressive disease(HPD),especially for patients with alterations or amplifications in driver genes,such as mouse double minute 2(MDM2),epidermal growth factor receptor(EGFR),and fibroblast growth factor 4(FGF4).Recently,Kamada et al[1]investigated the molecular mechanism of HPD to explore whether immune checkpoint inhibition caused HPD in patients in clinical trials.Ki67+effector regulatory T cells(eTregs)in HPD patients were found to be increased after PD-1 monoclonal antibody treatment.Other studies have also found that immune cells in the tumor microenvironment of patients with HPD show obvious changes before and after treatment.[2]Tumor microenvironment changes in HPD imply the potential presence of unknown gene interactions that promote rapid growth of tumor cells after cancer immunotherapy.