Point-of-Care Tests for Ultra-Low Detection of Pathogens Exploiting SPR-POF Sensors

Following the pandemic due to SARS-CoV-2, the need for rapid, sensitive, and accessible methods to detect viral and bacterial pathogens in different biological matrices has become evident. In this context, a point-of-care test (POCT) device has gained significant attention for its potential to provide rapid diagnosis outside traditional laboratory environments. An ideal POCT system should be compact, low-cost, highly selective and sensitive, operable by unskilled personnel, and capable of real-time data transmission through integration with the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. This overview presents a POCT, based on plastic optical fibers (POFs), for the pathogen detection exploiting surface plasmon resonance (SPR) phenomena. The plasmonic-sensitive gold surface can be combined with selective receptor layers for membrane protein detection of specific pathogens. To this purpose, biological receptors, such as antibodies and aptamers, and synthetic receptors, such as molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), can be employed to tailor the sensor for different targets of interest. The reported POCT is designed to support IoT integration, enabling real-time data transmission, cloud processing, and remote monitoring. The SPR-POF platform functionalized with different types of receptors shows strong potential for decentralized diagnostics, offering rapid analysis (about ten minutes), no sample pretreatment, and high scalability.