“Hepatitis virus indicator”----the simultaneous detection of hepatitis B and hepatitis C viruses based on the automatic particle enumeration

As the common hepatitis viruses, hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are important causes of liver diseases, which greatly threaten human health and public hygiene. Furthermore, due to the similar transmission routes of HBV and HCV, it is highly susceptible to suffer from the cross-infection of HBV and HCV when humans are infected by hepatitis viruses. So it is urgent to develop strategies with high sensitivity to distinguish HBV/HCV and detect their overlapping infection. Herein, a new biosensor named "hepatitis virus indicator" for simultaneous detection of HBV and HCV based on the automatic particle enumeration was developed by the combination of Exo III assisted signal amplification strategy and particle counting technology with a dark-field microscopy. The limit of detections (LOD) were as low as 0.194 pM for HBV and 0.169 pM for HCV, respectively. In addition, the proposed method was capable of simultaneously detecting HBV and HCV based on the colorful light scattering from plasmonic nanoparticles. The proposed assay was simple, sensitive and selective for the simultaneous detection of HBV and HCV, which provided a new idea for the early diagnosis of diseases, such as hepatitis A virus (HAV), hepatitis D virus (HDV) and hepatitis E virus (HEV).