Abstract
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a novel human infectious disease provoked by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Currently, no specific vaccines or drugs against COVID-19 are available. Therefore, early diagnosis and treatment are essential in order to slow the virus spread and to contain the disease outbreak. Hence, new diagnostic tests and devices for virus detection in clinical samples that are faster, more accurate and reliable, easier and cost-efficient than existing ones are needed. Due to the small sizes, fast response time, label-free operation without the need for expensive and time-consuming labeling steps, the possibility of real-time and multiplexed measurements, robustness and portability (point-of-care and on-site testing), biosensors based on semiconductor field-effect devices (FEDs) are one of the most attractive platforms for an electrical detection of charged biomolecules and bioparticles by their intrinsic charge. In this review, recent advances and key developments in the field of label-free detection of viruses (including plant viruses) with various types of FEDs are presented. In recent years, however, certain plant viruses have also attracted additional interest for biosensor layouts: Their repetitive protein subunits arranged at nanometric spacing can be employed for coupling functional molecules. If used as adapters on sensor chip surfaces, they allow an efficient immobilization of analyte-specific recognition and detector elements such as antibodies and enzymes at highest surface densities. The display on plant viral bionanoparticles may also lead to long-time stabilization of sensor molecules upon repeated uses and has the potential to increase sensor performance substantially, compared to conventional layouts. This has been demonstrated in different proof-of-concept biosensor devices. Therefore, richly available plant viral particles, non-pathogenic for animals or humans, might gain novel importance if applied in receptor layers of FEDs. These perspectives are explained and discussed with regard to future detection strategies for COVID-19 and related viral diseases.
Highlights
Virus outbreaks remain one of the global problems of our time
Due to the small size, fast response time, label-free operation without need for expensive and time-consuming labeling steps, the possibility of real-time and multiplexed measurements, robustness and compatibility with advanced micro- and nanofabrication technology, biosensors based on semiconductor field-effect devices (BioFEDs) are one of the most fascinating platforms for an electrical detection of charged biomolecules and bioparticles by their intrinsic charge (Poghossian et al, 2013, 2015; Poghossian and Schöning, 2014; Yang and Zhang, 2014; Veigas et al, 2015; Syu et al, 2018)
Notwithstanding, we have found only two cases of electrostatic detection of plant virus particles with FEDs
Summary
Virus outbreaks remain one of the global problems of our time. Due to the increased mobility of populations as well as the sustained growth in international travel accelerated by globalization, a large number of viruses are spreading rapidly around the globe causing infectious disease outbreaks. In order to overcome the limitations of RT-PCR-based systems and to facilitate massive diagnostic testing to counteract the increasing number of undetected cases, test manufacturers around the world have recently developed various portable/handheld, rapid, easy-to-use, point-of-care immunodiagnostic devices for on-site SARS-CoV2 detection in low-resource settings (e.g., in doctors’ practices or directly at home), each of which with its pros and cons (MoralesNarváez and Dincer, 2020; Nguyen et al, 2020; Ozer et al, 2020; Ravina et al, 2020; Udugama et al, 2020; Younes et al, 2020) These simple test kits are mostly based either on the detection of virus proteins in respiratory samples (e.g., sputum and throat swab), or of antibodies in human blood/serum, generated by the immune system in response to infection. Plant viruses are introduced as promising bionanotools and building blocks of smart materials (e.g., Mao et al, 2009; Culver et al, 2015; Khudyakov and Pumpens, 2016; Koch et al, 2016; Wen and Steinmetz, 2016; Dragnea, 2017; Steele et al, 2017; Chu et al, 2018a; Lomonossoff, 2018; Lomonossoff and Wege, 2018; Wege and Lomonossoff, 2018; Chen et al, 2019; Eiben et al, 2019; Wege and Koch, 2020; Wen et al, 2020) that may bring about novel options for biosensor technology if applied as model particles, signal-amplifying colloids or, most importantly, multivalent adapter templates for the high surface-density presentation of detector components
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