This study established a portable and ultrasensitive detection method based on recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) combined with high-sensitivity multilayer quantum dot (MQD)-based immunochromatographic assay (ICA) to detect the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The RPA-MQD-based ICA method is reported for the first time and has the following advantages: (i) RPA is free from the constraints of instruments and can be promoted in point-of-care testing (POCT) scenarios, (ii) fluorescence ICA enhances the portability of detection operation so that the entire operation time is controlled within 1 h, and (iii) compared with common colorimetric-based RPA-ICA, the proposed assay used MQD to provide strong and quantifiable fluorescence signal, thus enhancing the detection sensitivity. With this strategy, the proposed RPA-MQD-based ICA can amplify and detect the SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid on-site with a sensitivity of 2 copies/reaction, which is comparable to the sensitivity of commercial reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) kits. Moreover, the designed primers did not cross-react with other common respiratory viruses, including adenovirus, influenza virus A, and influenza virus B, suggesting high specificity. Thus, the established portable method can sensitively detect SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid without relying on equipment, having good application prospects in SARS-CoV-2 detection scenarios under non-lab conditions.
Keywords: POCT; SARS-CoV-2; immunochromatographic assay; multilayer quantum dot; recombinase polymerase amplification.