Alok Prasad Das
Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University, India
Title: Indigenous biodensor for rapid and low cost endotoxin detection system
Biography
Biography: Alok Prasad Das
Abstract
Endotoxin is a signature molecule of gram-negative bacteria and is clinically significant as the agent of gram-negative sepsis, a disease condition with high mortality. Bacterial endotoxin infection induces multiple adverse biological effects including fever, sepsis, systemic organ failure, platelet aggregation and thrombocytopenia. This study describes an enzyme-substrate reaction using the distilled water lysate of the granular hemocytes (amebocytes) of the mangrove horseshoe crab (Tachypleus gigas), a native of the Bay of Bengal, and a chromogenic peptide which results in the production of yellow spectroscopically monitored product in the presence of endotoxin. The assay is complete within 30 minutes and shows a lower detection limit of 0.02 EU/mL. The novelty of our approach is the use of mangrove horseshoe crabs as the source of amebocyte lysate instead of the American horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus). The anticipated methodology offers advantages for the South Asian market that include a low cost due to use of indigenous reagents. This method shows exquisite sensitivity and provides a rapid assessment of LPS concentrations. We believe that the marketable advance of our methodology will reduce the cost of present endotoxin detection test as compared to the cost of present imported kits presently available in Asian and Indian market.