posted on 2021-06-10, 13:03authored byKefan Yang, John C. Chaput
Isothermal amplification strategies
capable of rapid, inexpensive,
and accurate nucleic acid detection provide new options for large-scale
pathogen detection, disease diagnosis, and genotyping. Here we report
a highly sensitive multicomponent XNA-based nucleic acid detection
platform that combines analyte preamplification with X10–23-mediated
catalysis to detect the viral pathogen responsible for COVID-19. The
platform, termed RNA-Encoded Viral Nucleic Acid Analyte Reporter (REVEALR),
functions with a detection limit of ≤20 aM (∼10 copies/μL)
using conventional fluorescence and paper-based lateral flow readout
modalities. With a total assay time of 1 h, REVEALR provides a convenient
nucleic acid alternative to equivalent CRISPR-based approaches, which
have become popular methods for SARS-CoV-2 detection. The assay shows
no cross-reactivity for other in vitro transcribed respiratory viral
RNAs and functions with perfect accuracy against COVID-19 patient-derived
clinical samples.