Advances of engineered microfluidic biosensors via CRISPR/Cas in bacteria and virus monitoring

Abstract

The accelerated evolution of Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technology has facilitated the development of a versatile and user-friendly platform for precisely modifying and controlling genomes from diagnostics to therapeutics. However, the utilization of CRISPR technology is limited by its complexity, cost, and difficulty in quantification. Microfluidic microarray technology is an emerging biomedical tool with the potential for integration with CRISPR, simplification of operational procedures, shortened operation time, reduction of cost, and improvement sensitivity. Its application could take the development of CRISPR to a new level. This paper present an overview of the recent advances and collaborative work in the CRISPR technology combined with the different categories of microfluidic platform with superior automatic capability. We outline the applications of this integrated platform in bioanalysis, gene editing, bioassays, and clinical applications. Then we provide an outlook for the development of CRISPR-based microfluidic platforms based on optimizing both CRISPR and microfluidic and applying them in combination with other methods.