Usage of Raman Spectroscopy for the identification of Lyme’s Disease in Human Blood.
Abstract
Lyme Disease (LD) is reportedly the most widespread vector-borne disease in the continental US. The causative LD agent is the spirochetal bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb), which is spread through Ixodes ticks. When untreated, early non-specific symptoms such as fever, chills, and rashes can give way to more extreme conditions such as dermatitis, arthritis, facial palsy (i.e., partial facial paralysis), and severe neurological disorders (e.g., meningitis). LD is often misdiagnosed due to the early flu-like symptoms and poor sensitivity of the only validated two-tiered serological testing. This thesis compiles, the results of two studies, which have examined the possibility of using Raman Spectroscopy (RS) as a diagnostic tool of LD. RS is a method that uses the excitation of particles to higher vibrational and rotational states to distinguish between different chemical structures. The first study involved infecting mice with two wilt-type Bb strains (B31, 297) and one B31-derived mutant (∆vIsE), and using a home-built confocal Raman microscope to acquire spectra of blood sampled from the mice prior to and after Bb infection. The Partial Least Squares- Discriminant analysis of the spectra resulted in detection of Bb mouse infection with 86% accuracy for 297, and with 89% accuracy for Bb B31 and ∆vIsE. The second study involved testing of human blood sampled from LD-confirmed and, and LD-negative (control) patients. The results showed that the True Positive Rate was 88-90%.
Citation
Morey, Rohini Ravindra (2022). Usage of Raman Spectroscopy for the identification of Lyme’s Disease in Human Blood.. Undergraduate Research Scholars Program. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /200630.