A Charge-Switchable Zwitterionic Peptide for Rapid Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease

The transmission of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has led to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nucleic acid testing while specific has limitations for mass surveillance. One alternative is the main protease (M-pro) due to its functional importance in mediating the viral life cycle. Here, we describe a combination of modular substrate and gold colloids to detect M-pro via visual readout. The strategy involves zwitterionic peptide that carries opposite charges at the C-/N-terminus to exploit the specific recognition by M-pro. Autolytic cleavage releases a positively charged moiety that assembles the nanoparticles with rapid color changes (t <10 min). We determine a limit of detection for M-pro in breath condensate matrices <10 nM. We further assayed ten COVID-negative subjects and found no false-positive result. In the light of simplicity, our test for viral protease is not limited to an equipped laboratory, but also is amenable to integrating as portable point-of-care devices including those on face-coverings.