Bandage-like wearable flexible microfluidic recombinase polymerase amplification sensor for the rapid visual detection of nucleic acids

With the development of flexible advanced materials and microfluidic technology, wearable biosensors provide a new strategy for the continuous monitoring of health. In this study, a novel bandage-like wearable flexible microfluidic recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) sensor was constructed for the rapid and visual detection of nucleic acids. This wearable sensor is triggered by human body heat (30°C-37 °C) and allows for visual nucleic acid (a conserved nucleic acid fragments of zika virus) detection within 10 min. The sensor displays good sensitivity and selectivity, with a detection limit of 10 copies/μL. The wearable sensor has exhibited well-defined accuracy when applied to testing clinical serum samples. In addition, the wearable RPA sensor was proved to be feasible by human trials under different daily activities. This wearable sensor of nucleic acids will probably be of great significance in the field of online pathogen detection for wounds, for tumour biomarker diagnosis, and for the detection of epidermal cell molecular lesions.