Recent Advances of Representative Optical Biosensors for Rapid and Sensitive Diagnostics of SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

The outbreak of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has again emphasized the significance of developing rapid and highly sensitive testing tools for quickly identifying infected patients. Although the current reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) diagnostic techniques can satisfy the required sensitivity and specificity, the inherent disadvantages with time-consuming, sophisticated equipment and professional operators limit its application scopes. Compared with traditional detection techniques, optical biosensors based on nanomaterials/nanostructures have received much interest in the detection of SARS-CoV-2 due to the high sensitivity, high accuracy, and fast response. In this review, the research progress on optical biosensors in SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis, including fluorescence biosensors, colorimetric biosensors, Surface Enhancement Raman Scattering (SERS) biosensors, and Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) biosensors, was comprehensively summarized. Further, promising strategies to improve optical biosensors are also explained. Optical biosensors can not only realize the rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 but also be applied to judge the infectiousness of the virus and guide the choice of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, showing enormous potential to become point-of-care detection tools for the timely control of the pandemic.

Recent development of surface-enhanced Raman scattering for biosensing

“…SERS sensors have been successfully applied to detect various viruses, such as influenza virus [ 9 , 100 ], dengue virus (DENV) [ 101 ], human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) [ 102 ], ebola virus [ 103 ], severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) [ 104 ], etc. Especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, a large number of researchers have rapidly applied SERS sensing to the detection of SARS-CoV-2, and strive to promote its practicality and industrialization, which is the focus of our attention [ 6 , 105 – 111 ]. Table 1 showed the advantages/disadvantages of some commonly used genomic analysis, electrochemical sensors, plasma (SPR) sensors, and SERS sensors for virus detection.…”

“…Therefore, the S protein of SARS-CoV-2 is a significant target in SERS sensing. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019, our research group has been engaged in the detection of SARS-CoV-2 based on SERS sensors, and has completed the rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 S protein and single virus respectively [ 6 , 28 , 111 , 123 ]. We have pioneered the study of the Raman characteristic spectra of SARS-CoV-2 [ 28 ].…”

Emerging trends in point-of-care biosensing strategies for molecular architectures and antibodies of SARS-CoV-2

“…The rapid development in the field of nanobiotechnology has created an infinite number of possibilities for the development of new diagnosis technologies, particularly the emergence of nanofluorescent materials, which offers a wide range of opportunities for the application of novel fluorescence detection techniques. Optical biosensing strategies based on fluorescence colorimetric, SERS and SPR-based measurements provide quick and high-sensitivity biological detection capabilities, which are critical for detecting SARS-CoV-2 in a timely manner ( Xu et al, 2022 ).…”

Optical biosensing systems for a biological living body

“…Fluorescence biosensors can be divided into direct, “signal‐on”, and “signal‐off” biosensing systems depending on the generation or bursting of fluorescence in the assay. Currently the most common is the direct fluorescence biosensors, which contain a specific ligand with a fluorescent tag that selectively binds to the target and produces a fluorescence intensity proportional to the concentration of the analyte 51–55 . Regardless of the classification of the fluorescence biosensors, labeling fluorescent probes is essential for the construction of fluorescence biosensing systems.…”