Simultaneous Dual-Gene Diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 Based on CRISPR/Cas9-Mediated Lateral Flow Assay

AbstractFew methods for the detection of SARS‐CoV‐2 currently have the capability to simultaneously detect two genes in a single test, which is a key measure to improve detection accuracy, as adopted by the gold standard RT‐qPCR method. Developed here is a CRISPR/Cas9‐mediated triple‐line lateral flow assay (TL‐LFA) combined with multiplex reverse transcription‐recombinase polymerase amplification (RT‐RPA) for rapid and simultaneous dual‐gene detection of SARS‐CoV‐2 in a single strip test. This assay is characterized by the detection of envelope (E) and open reading frame 1ab (Orf1ab) genes from cell‐cultured SARS‐CoV‐2 and SARS‐CoV‐2 viral RNA standards, showing a sensitivity of 100 RNA copies per reaction (25 μL). Furthermore, dual‐gene analysis of 64 nasopharyngeal swab samples showed 100 % negative predictive agreement and 97.14 % positive predictive agreement. This platform will provide a more accurate and convenient pathway for diagnosis of COVID‐19 or other infectious diseases in low‐resource regions.