A Simple and Reliable Paraquat Test Strip Ready for Clinical Application and Field Detection

Abstract

Paraquat (PQ) poisoning can lead to pulmonary fibrosis, multiple organ failure and even death, posing a serious threat to human health. Here, a new naked-eye PQ test strip was developed to detect PQ in blood, urine and gastric juice within 10 min based on the novel custom-designed anti-PQ antibody. The PQ test strip could recognize PQ at a concentration of down to 10 ng/ml, reaching the high efficiency time-of-flight mass spectrometry detection level and identifying trace amounts of PQ in biological samples treated with a diquat (DQ) and PQ mixture. Moreover, we tested over 200 biological samples collected from PQ poisoned patients on PQ strips to verify its reliability, and the strip testing results were all consistent with those in the mass spectrometer. In addition, the reliable PQ test results of the test strip before and after blood perfusion demonstrated its value for therapeutic quality monitoring. Notably, both the performance evaluation and clinical trial of the proposed PQ strips have been validated in multiple hospitals and public health agencies that are ready for clinical practice. As the only PQ test strip aimed at human sample detection, it is of great significance for popularization and application in the wide-scale field testing of pesticide residue and aiding in clinical laboratory testing.

Keywords: Paraquat, Clinical sample detection, Field test, Naked eye observation