The 21st century has already brought us a plethora of new threats related to viruses that emerge in humans after zoonotic transmission or drastically change their geographic distribution or prevalence. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first spotted at the end of 2019 to rapidly spread in southwest Asia and later cause a global pandemic, which paralyzes the world since then. We have designed novel immunosensors targeting conserved protein sequences of the N protein of SARS-CoV-2 based on lab-produced and purified anti-SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid antibodies that are densely grafted onto various surfaces (diamond/gold/glassy carbon). Titration of antibodies shows very strong reactions up to 1:72 900 dilution. Next, we showed the mechanism of interactions of our immunoassay with nucleocapsid N protein revealing molecular recognition by impedimetric measurements supported by hybrid modeling results with both density functional theory and molecular dynamics methods. Biosensors allowed for a fast (in less than 10 min) detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus with a limit of detection from 0.227 ng/ml through 0.334 ng/ml to 0.362 ng/ml for glassy carbon, boron-doped diamond, and gold surfaces, respectively. For all tested surfaces, we obtained a wide linear range of concentrations from 4.4 ng/ml to 4.4 pg/ml. Furthermore, our sensor leads to a highly specific response to SARS-CoV-2 clinical samples versus other upper respiratory tract viruses such as influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, or Epstein-Barr virus. All clinical samples were tested simultaneously on biosensors and real-time polymerase chain reactions.
Authors
- dr Wioleta Białobrzeska,
- dr inż. Mateusz Ficek link open in new tab ,
- dr inż. Bartłomiej Dec link open in new tab ,
- Silvio Osella,
- Bartosz Trzaskowski link open in new tab ,
- Andres Jaramillo-Botero,
- dr Mattia Pierpaoli link open in new tab ,
- dr inż. Michał Rycewicz link open in new tab ,
- Yanina Dashkevich,
- Tomasz Łęga,
- Natalia Malinowska,
- Zofia Cebula,
- Daniel Bigus link open in new tab ,
- Daniel Firganek,
- mgr Ewelina Bięga,
- Karolina Dziąbowska,
- Mateusz Brodowski link open in new tab ,
- Marcin Kowalski,
- Mirosława Panasiuk,
- Beata Gromadzka,
- dr Sabina Żołędowska,
- dr inż. Dawid Nidzworski,
- Krzysztof Pyrć,
- prof William A. Goddard III,
- dr hab. inż. Robert Bogdanowicz link open in new tab
Additional information
- DOI
- Digital Object Identifier link open in new tab 10.1016/j.bios.2022.114222
- Category
- Publikacja w czasopiśmie
- Type
- artykuły w czasopismach
- Language
- angielski
- Publication year
- 2022
