An electrochemical biosensor for sensitive analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 RNA

The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is continuously worsening globally, herein we have proposed an electrochemical biosensor for the sensitive monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 RNA. The presence of target RNA firstly triggers the catalytic hairpin assembly circuit and then initiates terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated DNA polymerization. Consequently, a large number of long single-stranded DNA products can be produced, and these negatively charged DNA products will bind a massive of positively charged electroactive molecular of Ru(NH₃)₆³⁺ due to the electrostatic adsorption. Therefore, significantly amplified electrochemical signals can be generated for sensitive analysis of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the range of 0.1-1000 pM with the detection limit as low as 26 fM. Besides the excellent distinguishing ability for SARS-CoV-2 RNA against single-base mismatched RNA, the proposed biosensor can also be successfully applied to complex matrices, as well as clinical patient samples with high stability, which shows great prospects of clinical application.