Identifying infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2 by ultra-sensitive SnS2 SERS biosensors with capillary effect

Yusi Peng; Chenglong Lin; Yanyan Li; Yong Gao; Jing Wang; Jun He; Zhengren Huang; Jianjun Liu; Xiaoying Luo; Yong Yang

doi:10.1016/j.matt.2021.11.028

Identifying infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2 by ultra-sensitive SnS₂ SERS biosensors with capillary effect

Matter. 2022 Feb 2;5(2):694-709. doi: 10.1016/j.matt.2021.11.028. Epub 2021 Dec 20.

Authors

Yusi Peng^{1

2

3}, Chenglong Lin^{1

2

3}, Yanyan Li^{1

2

3}, Yong Gao⁴, Jing Wang⁴, Jun He^{5

6}, Zhengren Huang¹, Jianjun Liu¹, Xiaoying Luo⁷, Yong Yang^{1

3}

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 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.19(A) Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, People's Republic of China.
³ Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁴ The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230001, China.
⁵ Anhui Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Hefei, Anhui 12560, China.
⁶ Public Health Research Institute of Anhui Province, Hefei, Anhui 12560, China.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200032, China.

Abstract

The current COVID-19 pandemic urges us to develop ultra-sensitive surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates to identify the infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2 virions in actual environments. Here, a micrometer-sized spherical SnS₂ structure with the hierarchical nanostructure of "nano-canyon" morphology was developed as semiconductor-based SERS substrate, and it exhibited an extremely low limit of detection of 10^-13 M for methylene blue, which is one of the highest sensitivities among the reported pure semiconductor-based SERS substrates. Such ultra-high SERS sensitivity originated from the synergistic enhancements of the molecular enrichment caused by capillary effect and the charge transfer chemical enhancement boosted by the lattice strain and sulfur vacancies. The novel two-step SERS diagnostic route based on the ultra-sensitive SnS₂ substrate was presented to diagnose the infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2 through the identification standard of SERS signals for SARS-CoV-2 S protein and RNA, which could accurately identify non-infectious lysed SARS-CoV-2 virions in actual environments, whereas the current PCR methods cannot.

Keywords: SERS; SnS2 hierarchical nanostructures; capillary effect; infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2; lattice strain; ultra-low limit of detection.