Nucleic acid amplification with specific signal filtration and magnification for ultrasensitive colorimetric detection

Abstract

Recently, sensitive, fast and low cost nucleic acid isothermal amplification technologies (such as loop-mediated isothermal amplification, LAMP) have attracted great attention in the urgent needs of point-of-care testing (POCT) and regular epidemic prevention and control. However, unlike PCR which usually employs TaqMan probe to report specific signals, specific-signal-output strategies in isothermal amplification are immature and visual detection even rare, which limits their popularity in POCT. We hypothesize to address this issue by designing a visual-signal-report system to both filtrate and magnify the target information in isothermal amplification. In this work, we developed a specific signal filtration and magnification colorimetric isothermal sensing platform (SFMC for short) for ultrasensitive detection of DNA and RNA. SFMC consists of two processes: an isothermal amplification with specific signal filtration and a self-replication catalyzed hairpin assembly (SRCHA) for rapid target-specific signal magnification and outputting. With these unique properties, this biosensing platform could detect target DNA as low as 5 copies per reaction and target RNA as low as 10 copies per reaction by naked eyes. Benefited from the excellent colorimetric detection performance, this biosensing platform has been successfully used for African swine fever virus (ASFV) and SARS-CoV-2 detection.

Keywords: Colorimetric detection; Nucleic acid isothermal amplification; Nucleic acids detection; Signal filtration and magnification.