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Updated: Nov 10, 2025

Author Spotlight: Advancements and Challenges in Hepatitis B Virus Detection
Published on: December 15, 2023
Multiple Cross Displacement Amplification Linked with Nanoparticles-Based Lateral Flow Biosensor in Screening of
Xu Chen1,2, Qingxue Zhou3, Shilei Dong4
1The Second Clinical College, Guizhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Guiyang, Guizhou, 550003, People's Republic of China.
Background:
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a common pathogen that predominantly causes severe liver disease, and remains one of a huge challenge worldwide, especially in many resource-constrained areas. Developing a low-cost, sensitive, specific, and rapid approach for screening HBV is critical for its treatment and prevention. In the current study, a novel molecular detection approach, multiple cross displacement amplification (MCDA) coupled with polymer nanoparticle-based lateral flow biosensor (MCDA-LFB), was applied for detection of HBV in blood samples.
Methods:
HBV standard substance and clinical donor serum samples were collected and used for the establishment and confirmation of the HBV-MCDA-LFB assay. A set of 10 MCDA primers was designed according to HBV-specific gene S. The HBV-MCDA-LFB assay conditions, including genomic template concentration, MCDA reaction temperature and time were optimized. The sensitivity and specificity of the HBV-MCDA -LFB assay were evaluated in this report. The HBV-MCDA-LFB assay was applied to detect the HBV agent from clinical samples.
Results:
The HBV-MCDA primers based on the S gene were valid for establishment of MCDA assay. The HBV-MCDA reaction with optimized conditions could be carried out at a constant temperature 64°C for 35 min. The whole process, including sample preparation (5 min), genomic template extraction (~30 min), MCDA amplification (35 min), and LFB reading (~2 min), could be completed within 80 min. The sensitivity of this assay was 5 IU per reaction. The specificity was 100% for HBV-MCDA-LFB assay.
Conclusion:
These results confirmed that the HBV-MCDA-LFB is a low-cost, sensitive, specific, simple, and rapid method for detecting HBV agents. This technique has great potential to develop a point-of-care testing (POCT) method in clinical practice, especially in endemic and resource-constrained regions.

