SERS Facemask for Rapid and Portable Sensing Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Antigens for TB Screening

Rapid and sensitive diagnostic strategies are crucial for the prevention and control of tuberculosis (TB). Unlike the invasive TB diagnostic strategy in the clinic, here we introduce a convenient, portable, and non-invasive system that is constructed by Ag@Au nanoflower (NF) array-based sensing facemask and catalytic/plasmonic urchin-shaped Au─Ag embedded covalent organic framework (U@COF) sensor. This system detects TB antigen ESAT-6/CFP-10 complex in droplet or sputum samples from a variety of clinical settings. Practical analysis of clinical samples demonstrates this assay is capable of classifying the negative (N = 12) and positive (N = 17) TB patients with satisfactory sensitivity (76.5%) and specificity (100%), among whom two TB-infected patients (TB3 and TB5) missed by droplet analysis are successfully identified by sputum analysis. More importantly, two cases with abnormally elevated ESAT-6/CFP-10 levels are screened out from close contacts of TB patients (N = 6), which is highly suggestive of TB infection (Close contacts 3 and 4). This portable mask is suitable for rapid diagnosis of TB infection in patients with cough, particularly for screening of TB close contacts.