PLoS ONE (Jan 2024)

The PreQuine Platform: A novel diagnostic tool for measuring glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) activity and hemoglobin concentration.

  • Robert Harper,
  • Benedikt Ley,
  • Md Alamgir Kabir,
  • Graham Matulis,
  • Lorenz von Seidlein,
  • Mohammad Shafiul Alam,
  • Bipin Adhikari,
  • Bernard A Okech,
  • Alan L Williams,
  • Ric N Price,
  • Michael E von Fricken

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0297918
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 19, no. 5
p. e0297918

Abstract

Read online

Quantitative diagnosis of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency is essential for the safe administration of 8-aminoquinoline based radical cure for the treatment of Plasmodium vivax infections. Here, we present the PreQuine Platform (IVDS, USA), a quantitative biosensor that uses a dual-analyte assay for the simultaneous measurement of Hemoglobin (Hgb) levels and G6PD enzyme activity within the same sample. The platform relies on a downloadable mobile application. The device requires 10μl of whole blood and works with a reflectance-based meter. Comparing the G6PD measurement normalized by Hgb of 12 samples from the PreQuine Platform with reference measurements methods (spectrophotometry, Pointe Scientific, USA and hemoglobin meter, HemoCue, Sweden) showed a positive and significant agreement with a slope of 1.0091 and an intercept of -0.0379 under laboratory conditions. Next steps will be to conduct field trials in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and the USA to assess diagnostic performance, user friendliness and acceptance.