Integrating CRISPR/Cas within isothermal amplification for point-of-Care Assay of nucleic acid

Nucleic acid detection technology is now widely used in scientific research and clinical testing, such as infectious and genetic diseases screening, molecular diagnosis of tumors and pharmacogenomic research, which is also an important part of in vitro diagnostics (IVD). However, with the increasing requirements of diagnosis and treatment, existing nucleic acid detection technologies are facing challenges in dealing with the current problems (especially since the outbreak of coronavirus disease in 2019 (Covid-19)). Recently, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR-associated protein (CRISPR/Cas)-based diagnostics have become a hot spot of attention. CRISPR/Cas has been developed as a molecular detection tool besides scientific research in biology and medicine fields, and some CRISPR-based products have already been translated. It is known as the “next-generation molecular diagnostic technology” because of its advantages such as easy design and accurate identification. CRISPR/Cas relies on pre-amplification of target sequences and subsequent detection of Cas proteins. Combining the CRISPR/Cas system with various isothermal nucleic acid amplification strategies can generate amplified detection signals, enrich low abundance molecular targets, improve the specificity and sensitivity of analysis, and develop point-of-care (POC) diagnostic techniques. In this review, we analyze the current status of CRISPR/Cas systems and isothermal amplification, report the advantages of combining the two and summarize the recent progress with the integration of both technologies with POC sensors in the nucleic acid field. In addition, the challenges and future prospects of CRISPR technology combined with isothermal amplification strategies in biosensing and clinical applications are discussed.