Tiny nets woven from DNA strands can ensnare the spike protein of the virus that causes COVID-19, lighting up the virus for a fast-yet-sensitive diagnostic test – and in addition impeding the virus from infecting cells, opening a latest possible path to antiviral treatment, in accordance with a latest study.

Researchers on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and collaborators demonstrated the DNA nets’ ability to detect and impede COVID-19 in human cell cultures in a paper published within the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

“This platform combines the sensitivity of PCR and the speed and low price of antigen tests,” said study leader Xing Wang, a professor of bioengineering and of chemistry at Illinois. “We’d like tests like this for a few reasons. One is to organize for the following pandemic. The opposite reason is to trace ongoing viral epidemics – not only coronaviruses, but additionally other deadly and economically impactful viruses like HIV or influenza.”

DNA is best known for its genetic properties, however it also might be folded into custom nanoscale structures that may perform functions or specifically bind to other structures very similar to proteins do. The DNA nets the Illinois group developed were designed to bind to the coronavirus spike protein – the structure that stands proud from the surface of the virus and binds to receptors on human cells to contaminate them. Once certain, the nets give off a fluorescent signal that might be read by a cheap handheld device in about 10 minutes.

The researchers demonstrated that their DNA nets effectively targeted the spike protein and were capable of detect the virus at very low levels, similar to the sensitivity of gold-standard PCR tests that may take a day or more to return results from a clinical lab.

The technique holds several benefits, Wang said. It doesn’t need any special preparation or equipment, and might be performed at room temperature, so all a user would do is mix the sample with the answer and browse it. The researchers estimated of their study that the tactic would cost $1.26 per test.

“One other advantage of this measure is that we are able to detect the complete virus, which continues to be infectious, and distinguish it from fragments that will not be infectious anymore,” Wang said. This not only gives patients and physicians higher understanding of whether or not they are infectious, however it could greatly improve community-level modeling and tracking of lively outbreaks, equivalent to through wastewater.

As well as, the DNA nets inhibited the virus’s spread in live cell cultures, with the antiviral activity increasing with the scale of the DNA net scaffold. This points to DNA structures’ potential as therapeutic agents, Wang said.

“I had this concept on the very starting of the pandemic to construct a platform for testing, but additionally for inhibition at the identical time,” Wang said. “A lot of other groups working on inhibitors try to wrap up the complete virus, or the parts of the virus that provide access to antibodies. This just isn’t good, because you wish the body to form antibodies. With the hole DNA net structures, antibodies can still access the virus.”

The DNA net platform might be adapted to other viruses, Wang said, and even multiplexed in order that a single test could detect multiple viruses.

“We’re attempting to develop a unified technology that might be used as a plug-and-play platform. We would like to make the most of DNA sensors’ high binding affinity, low limit of detection, low price and rapid preparation,” Wang said.

The National Institutes of Health supported this work through the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics program. The researchers will proceed to work through the RADx program to explore and speed up clinical applications for the DNA net platform.

Wang is also affiliated with the Holonyak Micro and Nanotechnology Lab and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at Illinois.

Source:

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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