Application of CRISPR/Cas Technology in Biological Nano‐Analysis

Abstract

AbstractCurrently, with the growing global demand for infectious disease diagnostics, environmental testing and food safety, CRISPR‐Cas (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats‐CRISPR associated proteins) system has unlimited potential as one of the emerging technologies in the field of biotechnology. Recent studies have shown that CRISPR‐Cas system has become a powerful weapon for gene editing, disease treatment, molecular diagnosis and imaging. As important biomarkers, various nucleic acid and non‐nucleic acid targets need to be detected from various samples before the situation deteriorates. In addition, there are still some limitations and challenges in the current biosensor platforms based on the CRISPR‐Cas system. Therefore, summarising the strategies, strengths and weaknesses, and development prospects of the CRISPR‐Cas system in nucleic acid and non‐nucleic acid target identification is beneficial to fully explore the potential development directions of CRISPR‐Cas‐based biosensor systems. This review briefly introduces and summarises the classification, mechanisms and applications of the system (diagnostics when combined with some signal detection means). In addition, some of the current limitations, challenges and future prospects for optimisation of biosensor platforms based on this system are discussed.