Recent progress in aptamer and CRISPR-Cas12a based systems for non-nucleic target detection

Abstract

Efficient and sensitive detection of targets is one of the motivations for constant development and innovation of various biosensors. CRISPR-Cas12a, a new generation of gene editing tools, has shown excellent application potential in biosensor design and construction. By combining with the specific recognition element-aptamer, a single-stranded oligonucleotide obtained by systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) in vitro screening, CRISPR-Cas12a also shows superior performance non-nucleic acid targets detection, such as small molecules, proteins, virus and pathogenic bacteria. However, aptamer and CRISPR-Cas12a (CRISPR-Cas12a/Apt) still face some problems in non-nucleic acid target detection, such as single signal response mode and narrow linear range. The development of diverse CRISPR-Cas12a/Apt biosensors is necessary to meet the needs of various detection environments. In this review, the working principle of CRISPR-Cas12a/Apt was introduced and recent progress in CRISPR-Cas12a/Apt in the application of non-nucleic acid target detection was summarized. Moreover, the requirements of critical parameters such as crRNA sequence, activator sequence, and reaction system in the design of CRISPR-Cas12a/Apt biosensors were discussed, which could provide the reference for the design of efficient and sensitive novel non-nucleic acid target biosensors. In addition, the challenges and prospects of CRISPR-Cas12a/Apt-based biosensor were further presented.

Keywords:

• Aptamer
• biosensor
• CRISPR-Cas12a
• non-nucleic acid target

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Project of Beijing (Z211100007021006), the Science and Technology Innovation Special Construction Funded Program of Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences (KJCX202000302), (KJCX20230437) and the Postdoctoral Research Fund of Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences (2022-ZZ-011).