Advancements of CRISPR technology in public health-related analysis

Pathogens and contaminants in food and the environment present significant challenges to human health, necessitating highly sensitive and specific diagnostic methods. Traditional approaches often struggle to meet these requirements. However, the emergence of the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) system has revolutionized nucleic acid diagnostics. The present review provides a comprehensive overview of the biological sensing technology based on the CRISPR/Cas system and its potential applications in public health-related analysis. Additionally, it explores the enzymatic cleavage capabilities mediated by Cas proteins, highlighting the promising prospects of CRISPR technology in addressing bioanalysis challenges. We discuss commonly used CRISPR-Cas proteins and elaborate on their application in detecting foodborne bacteria, viruses, toxins, other chemical pollution, and drug-resistant bacteria. Furthermore, we highlight the advantages of CRISPR-based sensors in the field of public health-related analysis and propose that integrating CRISPR-Cas biosensing technology with other technologies could facilitate the development of more diverse detection platforms, thereby indicating promising prospects in this field.