Malaria remains one of the most socioeconomic devastating infectious diseases world-wide. Highly sensitive, yet inexpensive and robust diagnostic methods are an essential tool in the fight against this disease. However, currently available methods are either not sensitive enough or are too laborious and expensive for malaria eradication campaigns. Here, we present a novel assay for the detection and quantification of the malaria biomarker hemozoin that achieves very high sensitivity, yet employs simple organic reagents that are cheap and stable. Solubilized hemozoin is used to catalyze the polymerization of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM) under activator regenerated by electron transfer atom transfer radical polymerization (ARGET ATRP) at 37 °C. The precipitation polymerization leads to the formation of a suspension of nanoparticles. As a result, the transparent assay solution turns turbid. The increase in optical density of the solution scales quantitatively with the concentration of hemozoin. The method combines dual amplification of the analyte by its catalytic activity and polymer chain growth with the high stability of ATRP reagents and a simple optical readout. Thus, the assay is ideally suited for malaria diagnostics under low resource settings, such as encountered in many malaria endemic regions of the world.

Biocatalytic precipitation ATRP as assay for malaria diagnostics

254th National Meeting (2017)

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