Bioinspired Plasmo-virus for Point-of-Care SARS-CoV-2 Detection

Directly identifying the presence of the virus in infected hosts with an appropriate speed and sensitivity permits early epidemic management even during the presymptomatic incubation period of infection. Here, we synthesize a bioinspired plasmo-virus (BPV) particle for rapid and sensitive point-of-care (POC) detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) via a self-assembled plasmonic nanoprobe array on spike proteins. The BPV enables strong near-infrared (NIR) extinction peaks caused by plasmonic nanogaps. We quantify SARS-CoV-2 in viral transport medium (VTM) at low titers within 10 min with a limit of detection (LOD) of 1.4 × 10¹ pfu/mL, which is 10³ times more sensitive than the current gold-standard method. The high-sensitivity and high-speed POC detection may be widely used for the timely, individualized diagnosis of infectious agents in low-resource settings.