On-site and visual detection of sorghum mosaic virus and rice stripe mosaic virus based on reverse transcription-recombinase-aided amplification and CRISPR/Cas12a

Front Genome Ed. 2023 Jan 20:5:1124794. doi: 10.3389/fgeed.2023.1124794. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

Rapid, sensitive and visual detection of plant viruses is conducive to effective prevention and control of plant viral diseases. Therefore, combined with reverse transcription and recombinase-aided amplification, we developed a CRISPR/Cas12a-based visual nucleic acid detection system targeting sorghum mosaic virus and rice stripe mosaic virus, which cause harm to crop production in field. When the RT-RAA products were recognized by crRNA and formed a complex with LbCas12a, the ssDNA labeled with a quenched green fluorescent molecule will be cleaved by LbCas12a, and then a significant green fluorescence signal will appear. The entire detection process can be completed within 30 min without using any sophisticated equipment and instruments. The detection system could detect samples at a dilution of 107, about 104-fold improvement over RT-PCR, so the system was successfully to detect rice stripe mosaic virus in a single leafhopper, which is the transmission vector of the virus. Finally, the CRISPR/Cas12a-based detection system was utilized to on-site detect the two viruses in the field, and the results were fully consistent with that we obtained by RT-PCR in laboratory, demonstrating that it has the application prospect of detecting important crop viruses in the field.

Keywords: CRISPR/Cas12a; RSMV; RT-RAA; SrMV; on-site detection; visual detection.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32072388, 32222071), Guangdong Special Branch Plan for Young Talent with Scientific and Technological Innovation (2019TQ05N158), Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2022A1515010770), the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China (2021M691083), Science and Technology Base and Talent Special Project of Guangxi Province (GuikeAD22035012), Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2021A1515110363), and Guangdong Provincial Innovation Team for General Key Technologies in Modern Agricultural Industry (2019KJ133).