Serotype-Specific Detection of Non-Structural Protein 1 from Dengue Viruses by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy: An Enhanced Precision Diagnosis

Dengue disease exhibits diverse clinical manifestations in patients when infected by its different serotypes. Early and accurate detection of dengue virus (DENV) infections, particularly distinguishing between serotypes is crucial for effective patient management and sporadic outbreak control. Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) offers advantages of high sensitivity, rapid acquisition, rapid analysis, minimal sample and preparation requirements. In this study, we present a simple and reproducible approach for serotype-specific detection of non-structural protein 1 (NS1) utilizing SERS on an aluminium based substrate. Leveraging specific vibrational signatures of NS1 protein from DENV serotypes, we demonstrated the potential of SERS to discriminate between NS1 proteins across DENV serotypes and also the amino acid residue variations that exist among them from different biological samples. Study demonstrates the SERS based detection of NS1 in the current in-vitro setting has sensitivity and specificity comparable to ELISA assays with limit of detection (LOD) reaching to 1ng/mL. However, the application of nanomaterials-based SERS substrate has potential to further enhance the LOD enabling detection even at lower concentrations. This approach holds promise for advancing our capacity to rapidly diagnose serotypic DENV infection in samples, studying pathogenesis and improving strategies for disease management and control.