Evaluation of a lateral-flow nanoparticle fluorescence assay for TB infection diagnosis.

BACKGROUND: Programmatic management of TB infection is a critical component of the WHO End TB Strategy. Interferon-gamma release assays (IGRAs) overcome some limitations of the tuberculin skin test, but implementation of IGRA testing in low-resource settings is challenging.METHODS: In this feasibility study, we evaluated performance of a novel digital lateral-flow assay, the QIAreach® QuantiFERON® TB (QIAreach-QFT) test, against the QuantiFERON®-TB Gold Plus (QFT-Plus) assay. A population with a mix of risk factors for TB infection (111 donors) were sampled over multiple days. A total of 207 individual blood samples were tested according to the manufacturer´s instructions.RESULTS: The overall percentage agreement was 95.6% (two-sided 95% CI 91.8-98), with a positive percentage agreement (i.e., sensitivity) of 100% (95% CI 94.7-100) and a negative percentage agreement (i.e., specificity) of 95.6% (95% CI 90.6-98.4). All QFT-Plus positive specimens with TB1-Nil and TB2-Nil values less than 1 IU/ml tested positive on QIAreach-QFT.CONCLUSIONS: QIAreach QFT is a deployable, accurate testing solution for decentralised testing. It has the potential to overcome key hurdles for TB infection screening in high-burden settings thus helping to achieve the WHO End TB programme goals.

An oxidation-labile traceless linker for solid-phase synthesis.

Traceless release of biaryls, acetylenes, alkenes, heterocycles, thioethers, and secondary amines from different solid supports can be achieved under very mild conditions by using a hydrazide group. This group, which is converted into an acyl diazene by oxidation and subsequently cleaved by a nucleophile (see scheme), is thus an attractive new linker for solid-phase synthesis and combinatorial chemistry.

Syntheses of analogues of the insect neuropeptide proctolin containing an oxazole ring as an amide bond replacement.

[structure: see text]. Three oxazole analogues of the insect neuropeptide proctolin (H-Arg-Tyr-Leu-Pro-Thr-OH) have been prepared, containing a single oxazole between Tyr and Pro and between Pro and Thr, respectively. A compound containing an oxazole moiety between Tyr and Pro and between Pro and Thr has also been prepared. All compounds have been tested for myotropic activity.