COVID-19 Diagnostic Strategies Part II: Protein-Based Technologies

Abstract

After the initiation of the current outbreak, humans’ lives have been profoundly impacted by COVID-19. During the first months, no rapid and reliable detecting tool was readily available to sufficiently respond to the requirement of massive testing. In this situation, when the development of an effective vaccine requires at least a few months, it is crucial to be prepared by developing and commercializing affordable, accurate, rapid and adaptable biosensors not only to fight Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) but also to be armed to avoid the pandemic in the earliest stages in the future. The COVID-19 diagnostic tools are categorized into two main groups of Nucleic Acid (NA)-based and protein-based tests. To date, nucleic acid-based detection has been announced as the gold-standard strategy for coronavirus detection; however, protein-based tests are promising alternatives for rapid and large-scale screening of susceptible groups. In this review, we discuss the current protein-based biosensing tools, the research advances and the potential protein-detecting strategies for COVID-19 detection. This narrative review aims to highlight the importance of the diagnostic tests, encourage the academic research groups and the companies to eliminate the shortcomings of the current techniques and step forward to mass-producing reliable point-of-care (POC) and point-of-need (PON) adaptable diagnostic tools for large-scale screening in the future outbreaks.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) immunoglobulins using chemiluminescence immunoassay and its correlation with neutralizing antibodies

“…Serological tests of SARS-CoV-2 are very informative and important owing to their ability to determine the current immune response of the infected patients. We still need to know more about the extent and duration of immunity induced by SARS-CoV-2 infection, especially in comparing symptomatic and asymptomatic patients ( Shaffaf and Ghafar-Zadeh, 2021 ; Zhao et al., 2020 ). In some situations, serologic antibody testing may aid in the establishment or confirmation of a diagnosis, as well as in the prediction of clinical course and clinical decision-making, particularly in the era of SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations and the emergence of new viral variants ( Bonanni et al., 2021 ; Winter and Hegde, 2020 ).…”

“…Some of these assays depend on the whole inactivated virions, while others determine viral subunits such as the spike or nucleocapsid proteins ( Padoan et al., 2021 ). Chemiluminescent immunoassays are the most sensitive in terms of methodology, produce extremely accurate and precise results, and are mainly used to detect viral nucleocapsid (N) and spike (S) antigens (S1, S2, or receptor-binding domain (RBD) of S1) of SARS-CoV-2, or a combination of them ( Shaffaf and Ghafar-Zadeh, 2021 ). Serological tests are more beneficial in being faster, with lower cost, having a complementary role to RT-PCR in patients with low viral load, and estimating the seroprevalence of the disease ( Wolff et al., 2020 ).…”

Towards Fully Integrated Portable Sensing Devices for COVID-19 and Future Global Hazards: Recent Advances, Challenges, and Prospects

“…Combining these tools with the current biological detection technologies can overcome the abovementioned challenges and form alternative methodologies for biomedical applications. Such devices with the merit of being high-throughput, mass-produced, rapid, and accurate are simple to use out of the laboratory or hospital settings without requiring any technical training or costly material [ 56 , 57 ]. Considering their advantages, the biosensors have attracted the attention of many researchers to be developed as the next generation of detecting tools for biomedical applications [ 58 ].…”

“…Antibodies have been widely used as receptors for disease detection purposes including respiratory diseases. After the coronavirus spread, researchers have made several attempts to adapt these biosensors for COVID-19 diagnostics [ 57 ]. Seo et al have reported one of the very promising graphene field-effect transistor (G-FET)-based biosensing devices for SARS-CoV-2 detection ( Figure 5 ) [ 59 ].…”

Receptor-binding domain–based immunoassays for serosurveillance differentiate efficiently between SARS-CoV2–exposed and non-exposed farmed mink

“…8,37 Taking advantage of multiplex and miniaturization features, microarray immunoassays (MIs) have been used extensively for human antibody response to SARS-CoV2 proteins 7,16,26,36 and for serosurveillance. 6,27,31 However, to our knowledge, a microarray format for testing of SARS-CoV2-specific antibody has not been reported in veterinary medicine. We developed 2 ELISAs and a duplex protein MI, all based on a double-recognition (DR) format, specifically for mink serum, to detect antibodies to the N protein and RBD.…”