Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), also known as sleeping sickness, is a vector-borne neglected tropical disease endemic to rural sub-Saharan Africa. Current methods of early detection in the affected rural communities generally begin with general screening using the card agglutination test for trypanosomiasis (CATT), a serological test. However, the gold standard for confirmation of trypanosomiasis remains the direct observation of the causative parasite, Trypanosoma brucei. Here, we present the use of dielectrophoresis (DEP) to enrich T. brucei parasites in specific locations to facilitate their identification in a future diagnostic assay. DEP refers to physical movement that can be selectively induced on the parasites when exposing them to electric field gradients of specific magnitude, phase and frequency. The long-term goal of our work is to use DEP to selectively trap and enrich T. brucei in specific locations while eluting all other cells in a sample. This would allow for a diagnostic test that enables the user to characterize the presence of parasites in specific locations determined a priori instead of relying on scanning a sample. In the work presented here, we report the characterization of the conditions that lead to high enrichment, 780% in 50 s, of the parasite in specific locations using an array of titanium microelectrodes.

中文翻译：

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布鲁氏锥虫寄生虫使用介电泳的高度局部富集。

人类非洲锥虫病（HAT），也称为昏睡病，是撒哈拉以南非洲农村地区特有的媒介传播的被忽视的热带病。在受影响的农村社区中，当前的早期检测方法通常从使用卡氏凝集试验（针对血清学检查的锥虫病（CATT））进行常规筛查开始。但是，确诊锥虫病的金标准仍是对引起寄生虫的布鲁氏锥虫的直接观察。在这里，我们介绍使用介电电泳（DEP）来丰富布鲁氏菌特定位置的寄生虫，以利于将来的诊断测定中对其进行鉴定。DEP是指将寄生虫暴露于特定幅度，相位和频率的电场梯度时可以选择性地在寄生虫上诱导的物理运动。我们工作的长期目标是使用DEP在特定位置选择性捕获和富集布氏锥虫，同时洗脱样品中的所有其他细胞。这将允许进行诊断测试，使用户能够表征先验确定的特定位置中的寄生虫的存在。而不是依靠扫描样本。在这里介绍的工作中，我们报告了使用钛微电极阵列在特定位置导致寄生虫高浓度富集（在50 s内达到780％）的条件的特征。