Abstract

Trypanosoma evansi remains a major cause of Trypanosomiasis in Indonesia, called Surra. However, the lack of accessibility and affordability for diagnostic tests (Card Agglutination Test for Trypanosomiasis/T. evansi – CATT/T. evansi; ELISA and PCR) leads to unsuccessful control of Surra in the field. The study aims to investigate the performance of protein-based biosensor of surra (Trypanosoma evansi) for distinguishing positive and negative sera. Herein, protein was obtained from the T. evansi propagation. This protein was immobilized by carbodiimide reaction on the surface of carbon screen printed electrode as the lowest interaction material with serum/antibody (% I < 90%). The sensor method used in this present study was differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). Data were normalized and analyzed using PSTrace 5.8 program. The results demonstrated that false negative and false positive of sensor were observed at 64 and 2 dilution times respectively. The positive serum analyzed using DVP (potential range -0.2 - +1.0 V, scan rate 0.1 Vs- 1) revealed that the slope of positive serum (1.84) was higher than those of the negative serum (1.01) indicating the sensitivity of the produced biosensor for surra (T. evansi). Similarly, these results were confirmed by serological test (CATT/T. evansi). From this study, the obtained protein-based biosensor is a promising tool for surra detection in livestock.