Acustofluídica como inovação tecnológica para a bioespectroscopia aplicada ao estudo das leishmanioses.”

Abstract

The leishmaniases are a group of diseases caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Leishmania, family Trypanosomatidae. Approximately 350 million people are at risk of developing the disease in 102 countries. The leishmaniases are composed of three main clinical forms, namely cutaneous, mucosal, and visceral, with the last one being the most severe and causing most deaths. Despite the technological advances, routine diagnostics is based on direct methods which detect the intracellular stage of the parasite using microscopy in tissue samples from aspiration of the spleen, liver, bone marrow, and lymph nodes. However, these invasive procedures require an experienced microscopist and do not provide a safe diagnosis in all cases because parasite distribution in affected tissues is not homogenous. Blood tests are the most practical ones to perform, but there are little circulating infected cells. With the aim of developing more sensitive and specific methods, new technological strategies are being developed. Then, this study aimed to develop an instrument for a new diagnostic method based on the acoustofluidic method which combines the technology of microfluidics with acoustic forces to manipulate cells and microorganisms. As an innovation, we are combining optical spectroscopy with acoustofluidics. The obtained results confirm the robustness of acoustofluidc methods as a platform to trap macrophages of the J774.A1 cell line, Leishmania amazonensis and Leishmania chagasi promastigotes, and J774.A1 cells infected with L. amazonensis amastigotes, which are targets of diagnostic methods. It was also demonstrated that the acoustofluidic device developed by our research group was able to trap J774.A1 macrophages for bio-Raman spectroscopy as showed in the paper, obtained from this thesis, which is entitled “3D - Printed Acoustofluidic Devices for Raman Spectroscopy of Cells”. Therefore, this study can facilitate and improve leishmaniasis diagnosis using less invasive biological samples.