A Single Electrochemical Biosensor Designed to Detect Any Virus.

Abstract

Viruses are the primary cause of many infectious diseases in both humans and animals. Various testing methods require an amplification step of the viral RNA sample before detection, with quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) being one of the most widely used along with lesser-known methods like Nucleic Acid Sequence-Based Amplification (NASBA). NASBA offers several advantages, such as isothermal amplification and high selectivity for specific sequences, making it an attractive option for low-income facilities. In this research, we employed a single electrochemical biosensor (E-Biosensor) designed for potentially detecting any virus by modifying the NASBA protocol. In this modified protocol, a reverse primer is designed with an additional 22-nucleotide sequence (tag region) at the 5'-end, which is added to the NASBA process. This tag region becomes part of the final amplicon generated by NASBA. It can hybridize with a single specific E-Biosensor probe set, enabling subsequent virus detection. Using this approach, we successfully detected three different viruses with a single E-Biosensor design, demonstrating the platform's potential for virus detection.