Multiplexed Discrimination of SARS-CoV-2 Variants Via Plasmonic-enhanced Fluorescence in a Portable and Automated Device

Overview

Journal Nat Biomed Eng

Publisher Springer Nature

Specialty Biomedical Engineering

Date 2023 Sep 22

PMID 37735541

Authors

Ying Liu

Yang Yang

Guanghui Wang

Dou Wang

Pan-Lin Shao

Jiahu Tang

Tingzhen He

Jintao Zheng

Ruibin Hu

Yiyi Liu

Ziyi Xu

Dan Niu

Jiahui Lv

Jingkai Yang

Hongjun Xiao

Shuai Wu

Shuang He

Zhongrong Tang

Yan Liu

Meijie Tang

Xingyu Jiang

Jing Yuan

Hongjie Dai

Bo Zhang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Portable assays for the rapid identification of lineages of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are needed to aid large-scale efforts in monitoring the evolution of the virus. Here we report a multiplexed assay in a microarray format for the detection, via isothermal amplification and plasmonic-gold-enhanced near-infrared fluorescence, of variants of SARS-CoV-2. The assay, which has single-nucleotide specificity for variant discrimination, single-RNA-copy sensitivity and does not require RNA extraction, discriminated 12 lineages of SARS-CoV-2 (in three mutational hotspots of the Spike protein) and detected the virus in nasopharyngeal swabs from 1,034 individuals at 98.8% sensitivity and 100% specificity, with 97.6% concordance with genome sequencing in variant discrimination. We also report a compact, portable and fully automated device integrating the entire swab-to-result workflow and amenable to the point-of-care detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants. Portable, rapid, accurate and multiplexed assays for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants and lineages may facilitate variant-surveillance efforts.

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