Target recognition triggered CRISPR-Cas12a assisted allosteric scaffold for sensitively analyzing bacterial infection...

Accurate identification and sensitive quantification of infected bacteria after dental implant both play crucial roles in early-diagnosis of bacterial infection and guiding medicine applications. Herein, we propose a sensitive and accurate bacteria detection method based on CRISPR-Cas12a system assisted allosteric scaffold. In the method, the allosteric scaffold takes the responsibility of specifically identifying target bacteria and inducing CRISPR-Cas12a based signal amplification. Eventually, the method exhibits a wide detection range from 6 × 10⁶ cfu/mL to 6 × 10² cfu/mL with the limit of detection (LOD) of 47 cfu/mL. Furthermore, the established approach also possesses a high specificity due to high selectivity of aptamer and robust accuracy in recognizing double strand DNA by CRISPR-Cas12a system. We believe that this work can provide new strategies in the field of diagnosing bacterial infections after dental implantation.