Abstract
The long-term pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) requires sensitive and accurate diagnostic assays to detect severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus and SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in infected individuals. Currently, RNA of SARS-CoV-2 virus is mainly detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-based nucleic acid assays, while SARS-CoV-2 antigen and antibody are identified by immunological assays. Both nucleic acid assays and immunological assays rely on the luminescence signals of specific luminescence probes for qualitative and quantitative detection. The exploration of novel luminescence probes will play a crucial role in improving the detection sensitivity of the assays. As innate probes, aggregation-induced emission (AIE) luminogens (AIEgens) exhibit negligible luminescence in the free state but enhanced luminescence in the aggregated or restricted states. Moreover, AIEgen-based nanoparticles (AIE dots) offer efficient luminescence, good biocompatibility and water solubility, and superior photostability. Both AIEgens and AIE dots have been widely used for high-performance detection of biomolecules and small molecules, chemical/biological imaging, and medical therapeutics. In this review, the availability of AIEgens and AIE dots in nucleic acid assays and immunological assays are enumerated and discussed. By building a bridge between AIE materials and COVID-19, we hope to inspire researchers to use AIE materials as a powerful weapon against COVID-19.
Highlights
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus, has spread over 216 countries/regions and resulted in more than 84 million infected cases and nearly 1.8 million deaths [1]
Compared to the pure aggregation-induced emission (AIE) dots, the composite AIE dots preserve the properties of both materials to offer a number of unique advantages: [1] synthetic efforts are minimized by reducing the hydrophilic groups; [2] luminescence performance are well-tuned by mixing various AIEgens in different concentrations; and [3] high specificity and responsiveness are achieved by using the amphiphilic matrices to conjugate with diverse linkers
While RTPCR assays have become the primary technique for detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA, other nucleic acid assays including isothermal amplification assays, hybridization microarray assays, amplicon-based metagenomics sequencing, and the cutting-edge CRISPR-related technologies have been developed [64]
Summary
Guan W (2021) The Promise of Aggregation-Induced Emission Luminogens for Detecting COVID-19. RNA of SARS-CoV-2 virus is mainly detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-based nucleic acid assays, while SARS-CoV-2 antigen and antibody are identified by immunological assays. Both nucleic acid assays and immunological assays rely on the luminescence signals of specific luminescence probes for qualitative and quantitative detection. AIEgen-based nanoparticles (AIE dots) offer efficient luminescence, good biocompatibility and water solubility, and superior photostability. Both AIEgens and AIE dots have been widely used for high-performance detection of biomolecules and small molecules, chemical/biological imaging, and medical therapeutics.
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