Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has created urgent demand for rapid detection of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Herein, we report highly sensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein (N protein) using nanoparticle-enhanced surface plasmon resonance (SPR) techniques. A crucial plasmonic role in significantly enhancing the limit of detection (LOD) is revealed for exceptionally large gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with diameters of hundreds of nm. SPR enhanced by these large nanoparticles lowered the LOD of SARS-CoV-2 N protein to 85 fM, resulting in the highest SPR detection sensitivity ever obtained for SARS-CoV-2 N protein.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic has created urgent demand for rapid detection of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus
The additional waves of the ongoing pandemic have created urgent demand for rapid, quantitative, on-site assays for detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)[2–4]
The turnaround time for the diagnosis is long for the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-based technique, as it requires sample transportation as well as sample processing associated with reverse transcription and amplification
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has created urgent demand for rapid detection of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The large AuNPs are found to exhibit SARS-CoV-2 detection sensitivity a full order of magnitude higher than the commonly-utilized smaller (tens of nanometers in diameter) AuNPs commonly utilized in nanoparticle-enhanced SPR.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
