A SERS-based lateral flow assay biosensor for highly sensitive detection of HIV-1 DNA

User-friendly lateral flow (LF) strips have been extensively used for point-of-care (POC) self-diagnostics, but they have some limitations in their detection sensitivity and quantitative analysis because they only identify the high cut-off value of a biomarker by utilizing color changes that are detected with the naked eye. To resolve these problems associated with LF strips, we developed a novel surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-based LF assay for the quantitative analysis of a specific biomarker in the low concentration range. Herein, human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) DNA was chosen as the specific biomarker. Raman reporter-labeled gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were employed as SERS nano tags for targeting and detecting the HIV-1 DNA marker, as opposed to using bare AuNPs in LF strips. It was possible to quantitatively analyze HIV-1 DNA with high sensitivity by monitoring the characteristic Raman peak intensity of the DNA-conjugated AuNPs. Under optimized conditions, the detection limit of our SERS-based lateral flow assay was 0.24 pg/mL, which was at least 1000 times more sensitive compared to colorimetric or fluorescent detection methods. These results demonstrate the potential feasibility of the proposed SERS-based lateral flow assay to quantitatively detect a broad range of genetic diseases with high sensitivity.