Application of a cell microarray chip system for accurate, highly sensitive, and rapid diagnosis for malaria in Uganda

Accurate, sensitive, rapid, and easy operative diagnosis is necessary to prevent the spread of malaria. A cell microarray chip system including a push column for the recovery of erythrocytes and a fluorescence detector was employed for malaria diagnosis in Uganda. The chip with 20,944 microchambers (105 μm width and 50 μm depth) was made of polystyrene. For the analysis, 6 μl of whole blood was employed, and leukocytes were practically removed by filtration through SiO2-nano-fibers in a column. Regular formation of an erythrocyte monolayer in each microchamber was observed following dispersion of an erythrocyte suspension in a nuclear staining dye, SYTO 21, onto the chip surface and washing. About 500,000 erythrocytes were analyzed in a total of 4675 microchambers, and malaria parasite-infected erythrocytes could be detected in 5 min by using the fluorescence detector. The percentage of infected erythrocytes in each of 41 patients was determined. Accurate and quantitative detection of the parasites could be performed. A good correlation between examinations via optical microscopy and by our chip system was demonstrated over the parasitemia range of 0.0039-2.3438% by linear regression analysis (R(2) = 0.9945). Thus, we showed the potential of this chip system for the diagnosis of malaria.