A simple and versatile CRISPR/Cas12a-based immunosensing platform: Towards attomolar level sensitivity for small protein diagnostics

Recent advances in CRISPR/Cas biosensing have led to impressive performance in sensitivity, specificity, and speed for nucleic acid detection. However, the remarkable advantages (such as universality, ultralow, attomolar detection limits) of CRISPR/Cas biosensing systems are limited in testing non-nucleic acid targets. Herein, by synthesizing a functional hybrid conjugate of antibody and single strand DNA oligonucleotide, we had successfully demonstrated the capability to integrate CRISPR/Cas12a-based signal amplification into different types of immunoassay schemes without the need for any additional recognition molecule or molecular synthesis during the detection process, thus providing a simple but generally applicable approach to improve the conventional immunoassays with attomolar sensitivity for small protein detections, referred as the CRISPR-based Universal Immunoassay Signal Enhancer (CRUISE). CRUISE is capable of being integrated into various immunoassays either through the primary antibody or the secondary antibody, with sensitivity down to 1 fg mL-1 (∼50 aM) and 6 logs of linear range for detecting cytokines, such as IFN-γ and EGFR, under 3-4 h. It has a 103 times higher sensitivity compared to a commercial IFN-γ ELISA kit, but uses the same experimental scheme. The same 1 fg mL-1 sensitivity along with 6 logs of linear range was realized for IFN-γ detection in human plasma samples. We are expecting that our CRUISE provides an alternative but simple, user-friendly and effective strategy for those who rely on the use of immunoassays, while struggling with the limits of their sensitivity or detection ranges.