Membrane-based plasma collection device for point-of-care diagnosis of HIV

A major requirement for the development of point-of-care tests for the detection of disease analytes is the need to separate plasma from whole blood in an efficient and rapid manner. Furthermore, the separated plasma must be able to elute efficiently the analyte of interest and serve effectively as a physical matrix to deliver the equivalent of neat plasma for downstream diagnostic analysis. Additionally, many applications require the use of heat shock to liberate immunocomplexed antigen found in the collected plasma. A membrane-based filter method is reported for rapid and efficient collection of plasma from a whole blood sample that is compatible with heat shock. Using pediatric human immunodeficiency virus as an example, this device elutes 100% of the input p24 core antigen post-collection and enables heat shock of plasma samples identical to neat plasma treatment. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.