Zika Virus Liquid Biopsy: A Dendritic Ru(bpy)₃ ²⁺-Polymer-Amplified ECL Diagnosis Strategy Using a Drop of Blood

Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that leads to devastating consequences for fetal development. However, accurate diagnosis of ZIKV is made difficult by the fact that most infected patients are asymptomatic or present with symptoms similar to those of other febrile illnesses. Thus, the development of a simple, accurate, highly sensitive, and reliable method for the biomedical analysis and diagnosis of ZIKV is needed. Herein, a novel ZIKV liquid biopsy system was constructed via a dendritic Ru(bpy)₃ ²⁺-polymer-amplified electro-chemiluminescence (ECL) strategy. This system accomplished amplification-free analysis of ZIKV using a drop of blood, and simultaneously achieved a high sensitivity of 500 copies and superior specificity. This strategy adopted the humoral biomarker as the diagnostic index, which greatly simplified the analysis process, and established a nondestructive detection mode. Furthermore, the performance index for biomedical analysis of clinical ZIKV samples was investigated, and the results indicated that the dendritic Ru(bpy)₃ ²⁺-polymer-amplified ECL strategy reliably responded to ZIKV from the body fluid (blood, saliva, and urine). Hence, this system suitably met the strict clinical requirements for ZIKV detection and thus has the potential to serve as a new paradigm for the biomedical analysis and diagnosis of ZIKV.