Raman scattering technique allows for quick and accurate COVID-19 tests
Raman scattering technique allows for quick and accurate COVID-19 tests lead image
During the pandemic, two types of COVID-19 tests emerged — rapid antigen tests based on the detecting the body’s immune response but known to show false negatives, and polymerase chain reaction tests, which detect the virus’ genetic material but take hours to show results.
Gu et al. provides a novel third option using surface-enhanced Raman scattering, or SERS, to provide accurate results in just twelve minutes.
The SERS technique uses an active substrate to detect the virus’ biochemical structure and doesn’t require any extra reagents or special calibration. In recent years, several teams have developed SERS test for COVID-19, but none had achieved high sensitivity in a short timeframe.
To improve the testing time, the researchers used a spherical cocktail aptamer-gold nanoparticle substrate that could identify the virus’ spike proteins, combined with a SERS gold nanoprobe. This approach enabled the substrate and nanoprobes to sandwich SARS-COV-2 virus particles and form a concentrated “hot spot.” This allowed for detection when using SERS in just 12 minutes and sensitivities many times higher than previous SERS methods.
“We achieved a highly sensitive and specific detection of the COVID-19 S protein, while also shortening the detection time,” said author Jian-Feng Li. “We hope that this method can be used in future clinical detections to provide more effective control of the spread of infectious viroids.”
In the future, the researchers plan to continue improving their method and extending their work to detecting other viruses.
Source: “Ultrasensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 S protein with aptamers biosensor based on surface-enhanced raman scattering,” by Man-Man Gu, Peng-Cheng Guan, Shan-Shan Xu, Hong-Mei Li, Yi-Chuan Kou, Xiao-Dong Lin, Murugavel Kathiresan, Yanling Song, Yue-Jiao Zhang, Shang-Zhong Jin, and Jian-Feng Li, Journal of Chemical Physics (2023). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0130011 .
This paper is part of the 2022 JCP Emerging Investigators Special Collection, learn more here .
