Amperometric lytA magnetogenosensor applied to the rapid and specific identification of Streptococcus pneumoniae in clinical samples

Abstract

In this communication, the application of a previously developed combined asymmetric PCRmagnetic disposable amperometric genosensor to the determination of Streptococ-cus pneumoniae in clinical samples is reported. Results obtained with the amperometric magnetogenosensor assay and the gold standard protocol used (standard blood agar culture) for these tests have been compared through the analysis of 69 clinical samples and 126 agar plate cultures with suspicion of having S. pneumoniae. The quality of the devel-oped diagnostic test has been evaluated by constructing the corresponding Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves. Data provide a sensitivity of 90.30% and a specificity of 76.47 %, allowing unequivocal discrimination of the target bacteria from S. mitis and other closely related species. The aPCR disposable magnetogenosensor provides the results in only 5 h in comparison with the classical optochin identification test which requires up to 48 h.