Graduation Year

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.S.

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.)

Degree Granting Department

Pharmacy

Major Professor

Chuanhai Cao, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Umesh Jinwal, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Wanling Xuan, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Qingyu Zhou, Ph.D.

Keywords

Parkinson’s disease, α-synuclein, gold nanoparticles, Lateral Flow Immunoassay

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s disease and the fastest-growing neurodegenerative disorder in the world. The major issue with PD is that it takes several years of biological changes until the patient starts to experience physiological symptoms that could affect their daily lives. The major hallmark of PD is the appearance of Lewy body inclusions in the neuron’s cytoplasm, which is rich in a protein called α-Synuclein (α-Syn). Several studies have shown that the levels of α-Syn in blood increase because the excess α-Syn is released from neurons into the bloodstream through extracellular vesicles. This makes it an excellent biomarker for diagnosing and monitoring patient progress or treatment response. α-Syn is the most extensively studied biomarker for diagnosing PD. Developing a point-of-care technique to detect changes in the aggregated α-Syn in the blood is urgently needed and essential for early PD diagnosis. The current method commonly used to detect α-Syn is ELISA, or PCR, which could take a few hours and needs lab skills. Therefore, we developed a lateral flow immunoassay using an anti-mouse monoclonal antibody (2A4) and a polyclonal antibody (G93-115) for rapid detection in blood samples within 30 minutes using just the naked eye. The results that were observed using LFA was similar to those that were detected with ELISA

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