Human ACE2-Functionalized Gold "Virus-Trap" Nanostructures for Accurate Capture of SARS-CoV-2 and Single-Virus SERS Detection

Yong Yang; Yusi Peng; Chenglong Lin; Li Long; Jingying Hu; Jun He; Hui Zeng; Zhengren Huang; Zhi-Yuan Li; Masaki Tanemura; Jianlin Shi; John R Lombardi; Xiaoying Luo

doi:10.1007/s40820-021-00620-8

Human ACE2-Functionalized Gold "Virus-Trap" Nanostructures for Accurate Capture of SARS-CoV-2 and Single-Virus SERS Detection

Nanomicro Lett. 2021 Apr 13:13:109. doi: 10.1007/s40820-021-00620-8. eCollection 2021 Dec.

Authors

Yong Yang^{1

2

3}, Yusi Peng^{1

2}, Chenglong Lin^{1

2}, Li Long⁴, Jingying Hu⁵, Jun He^{6

7}, Hui Zeng⁸, Zhengren Huang¹, Zhi-Yuan Li⁴, Masaki Tanemura⁹, Jianlin Shi¹, John R Lombardi¹⁰, Xiaoying Luo⁵

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of High-Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructures, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1295 Dingxi Road, Shanghai, 200050 People's Republic of China.
² Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049 People's Republic of China.
³ Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049 People's Republic of China.
⁴ School of Physics and Optoelectronics, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640 People's Republic of China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200032 People's Republic of China.
⁶ Anhui Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Hefei, 12560 Anhui People's Republic of China.
⁷ Public Health Research Institute of Anhui Province, Hefei, 12560 Anhui People's Republic of China.
⁸ Shanghai Yangpu Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, 200090 People's Republic of China.
⁹ Department of Frontier Materials, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Nagoya, 466-8555 Japan.
¹⁰ Department of Chemistry, The City College of New York, 160 Convent Avenue, New York, NY 10031 USA.

Abstract

The current COVID-19 pandemic urges the extremely sensitive and prompt detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus. Here, we present a Human Angiotensin-converting-enzyme 2 (ACE2)-functionalized gold "virus traps" nanostructure as an extremely sensitive SERS biosensor, to selectively capture and rapidly detect S-protein expressed coronavirus, such as the current SARS-CoV-2 in the contaminated water, down to the single-virus level. Such a SERS sensor features extraordinary 10⁶-fold virus enrichment originating from high-affinity of ACE2 with S protein as well as "virus-traps" composed of oblique gold nanoneedles, and 10⁹-fold enhancement of Raman signals originating from multi-component SERS effects. Furthermore, the identification standard of virus signals is established by machine-learning and identification techniques, resulting in an especially low detection limit of 80 copies mL^-1 for the simulated contaminated water by SARS-CoV-2 virus with complex circumstance as short as 5 min, which is of great significance for achieving real-time monitoring and early warning of coronavirus. Moreover, here-developed method can be used to establish the identification standard for future unknown coronavirus, and immediately enable extremely sensitive and rapid detection of novel virus.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40820-021-00620-8.

Keywords: Human ACE2; SARS-CoV-2; SERS; Single-virus detection; “Virus-trap” nanostructure.