The swift, sensitive, and precise detection of pathogen nucleic acids holds immense importance for safeguarding public safety and promoting human health. Recently, a research team headed by Li Tie from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has pioneered an innovative detection technology. This technology is rooted in silicon nanowire field-effect transistors (SiNWs FET) that have been functionalized with the CRISPR/Cas12a system, facilitating the ultrasensitive, swift, and direct detection of pathogen double-stranded DNA.

This cutting-edge technology harnesses the precise recognition and cleavage capabilities of the Cas12a/crRNA complex. It swiftly scans and specifically cleaves target sequences within long-chain nucleic acids. By doing so, it effectively tackles the challenges of low detection efficiency and unstable signals that arise from nucleic acid folding and entanglement. Through the cleavage of long double-stranded DNA into fragments of defined lengths and their distribution within the Debye length range, there is a marked improvement in detection sensitivity and signal consistency.

Experimental findings reveal that this strategy can achieve quantitative detection of Bacillus anthracis double-stranded DNA in a mere 10 minutes, with a detection limit that reaches the attomolar (aM) level. The correlation coefficient between the detection results of real whole-genome samples and digital PCR stands at 0.912, attesting to its high reliability and significant potential for real-world applications. The pertinent research findings have been published in the esteemed academic journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.