A smartphone readout system for gold nanoparticle-based lateral flow assays: application to monitoring of digoxigenin

For modern approaches in precision medicine, fast and easy-to-use point-of-care diagnostics (POCs) are essential. Digoxin was chosen as an example of a drug requiring close monitoring. Digoxin is a cardiac glycoside used for the treatment of tachycardia with a narrow therapeutic window of 0.5–2.0 ng·mL(−1), and toxic effects are common for concentrations above 2.5 ng·mL(−1). For monitoring of blood concentration levels and treatment of intoxication, highly selective antibodies for digoxin and its hapten, digoxigenin, are available. A smartphone readout system is described for measuring digoxigenin in human serum using a common gold nanoparticle lateral flow assay (LFA). The R-package GNSplex, which also includes a Shiny app for quantitative test interpretation based on linear models, is used for image analysis. Images of lateral flow strips were taken with an iPhone camera and a simple darkbox made from black cardboard. Sensitivity and accuracy of the quantitative smartphone system as well as analytical parameters such as limit of detection (LOD) were determined and compared to data obtained with a high resolution BioImager. The data show that the smartphone based digoxin assay yields reliable quantitative results within the clinically relevant concentration range. [Figure: see text] ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00604-018-3195-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.