Point-of-care CRISPR/Cas nucleic acid detection: Recent advances, challenges and opportunities

Jeanne E van Dongen, Johanna T W Berendsen, Renske D M Steenbergen, Rob M F Wolthuis, Jan C T Eijkel, Loes I Segerink

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

194 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

With the trend of movingmolecular tests from clinical diagnosticlaboratories to on-site testing, there is a need for nucleic acid based diagnostic tools combining the sensitivity, specificity and flexibility of established geneticdiagnostics with the ease, cost effectiveness and speed of isothermal amplification and detectionmethods. A promising new nucleic acid detectionmethod is Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)-associated nuclease (Cas)-based sensing. In this method Cas effector proteins are used as highly specific sequence recognition elements that can be combined with many different read-out methods for on-site point-of-care testing. This review covers the technical aspects of integrating CRISPR/Cas technology in miniaturized sensors for analysis on-site. We start with a short introduction to CRISPR/Cas systems and the different effector proteins and continue with reviewing the recent developments of integrating CRISPR sensing in miniaturized sensors for point-of-care applications. Finally, we discuss the challenges of point-of-care CRISPR sensing and describe future research perspectives.

Original languageEnglish
Article number112445
Pages (from-to)112445
JournalBiosensors and Bioelectronics
Volume166
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Oct 2020

Keywords

  • CRISPR sensing
  • CRISPR/Cas
  • DNA sensing
  • Diagnosis
  • Genomic diagnostic tools
  • Point-of-care

Cite this