Flu chip can identify strains in hours
A novel Flu Chip, developed at the University of Colorado at Boulder, that can determine the genetic signatures of specific influenza strains from patient samples within hours may help world health officials combat coming epidemics and pandemics.
Tests on the technology by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta showed the CU-Boulder Flu Chip can determine the genetic make-up of types and subtypes of the flu virus in about 11 hours, said CU-Boulder Professor Kathy Rowlen of the chemistry and biochemistry department.
Current methods for characterising flu subtypes infecting patients take about four days.
The chip, which can be configured to test for all known flu virus strains as well as new variant strains, was evaluated for three primary subtypes of flu in the October CDC test, the avian flu strain H5N1, and two of the most common human flu types worldwide in recent winters, H1N1 and H3N2. The chip was more than 90% accurate and will be tested again 'side by side' with standard flu-virus culturing methods for accuracy and speed at the CDC's Atlanta headquarters.
The Flu Chip fits on a microscope slide and contains an array of spectroscopic spots. Genetic bits of information that are complementary to known, individual influenza strains are 'spotted' robotically in an array, where each row of three spots contains a specific sequence of 'capture' DNA. The microarray is then immersed in a wash of influenza gene fragments obtained from the fluid of an infected individual.
RNA fragments from the infected fluid bind to specific DNA segments on the microarray like a key in a lock, indicating both a match and that the virus signature is present. The captured RNA is then labelled with another complementary sequence that also contains a fluorescent dye, and such 'hits' light up when the chip is inserted into a laser scanner.
The Flu Chip also should be able to recognise mutations that might occur in avian flu H5N1, which has been spreading rapidly from bird to bird in Asia, Russia and parts of Europe.
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