Digital plasmonic nanobubble detection for rapid and ultrasensitive virus diagnostics

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Abstract

Rapid and sensitive diagnostics of infectious diseases is an urgent and unmet need as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we report a strategy, based on DIgitAl plasMONic nanobubble Detection (DIAMOND), to address this need. Plasmonic nanobubbles are transient vapor bubbles generated by laser heating of plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) and allow single-NP detection. Using gold NPs as labels and an optofluidic setup, we demonstrate that DIAMOND achieves compartment-free digital counting and works on homogeneous immunoassays without separation and amplification steps. DIAMOND allows specific detection of respiratory syncytial virus spiked in nasal swab samples and achieves a detection limit of ~100 PFU/mL (equivalent to 1 RNA copy/µL), which is competitive with digital isothermal amplification for virus detection. Therefore, DIAMOND has the advantages including one-step and single-NP detection, direct sensing of intact viruses at room temperature, and no complex liquid handling, and is a platform technology for rapid and ultrasensitive diagnostics.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.18.21252027: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.


    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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