Advances to Bordetella pertussis diagnosis: Adapting a real time PCR to a lab-on-chip platform

Whooping cough is caused by the bacteria Bordetella pertussis and, despite massive global vaccination campaigns, still poses a threat to infants, to elders well as to immunocompromised patients. In this work, we used a silicon lab-on-chip and a portable, lightweight thermocycler to develop a molecular-based detection reaction for two B. pertussis genes (IS48I and ptxS1). Each bacterial target is detected concomitantly to the detection of the human gene 18S. Thus, these duplex reactions have an internal control, which evaluates the performance of the whole system (chip temperature cycling and biological reaction). We found no significant difference between the results obtained in the portable equipment and in the standard benchtop instrument, the ABI7500. The results presented here are a first step towards a point of care test for B. pertussis diagnosis, adapted to primary health centers with low infrastructure as well as small hospitals and private health clinics.