Highly infectious illnesses caused by pathogens constitute severe threats to public health and lead to global economic loss. The use of robust and programmable clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat and CRISPR-associated protein (CRISPR-Cas) systems, repurposed from genome-engineering applications has markedly improved traditional nucleic acid detection for precise identification, independently enabling rapid diagnostics of multiplex biomarker with genetic and mutation related to tumors, and microbial pathogens. In this review, we delineate the utility of the current CRISPR-Cas enzyme as biosensors by which these effector toolkits achieve recognition, signaling amplification, and finally, accurate detection. Additionally, we discuss the details of the dominance and hurdles related to expanding this revolutionary technology into an effective and convenient contraption crucial for improving the rational redesign to CRISPR/Cas biosensing. Overall, this review provides an insight into the current status of rapid and POC diagnostic systems by CRISPR/Cas tools.

Detection of foodborne pathogens at an early stage is very important to control food quality and improve medical response. Rapid detection of foodborne pathogens with high sensitivity and specificity is becoming an urgent requirement in health safety, medical diagnostics, environmental safety, and controlling food quality. Despite the existing bacterial detection methods being reliable and widely used, these methods are time-consuming, expensive, and cumbersome. Therefore, researchers are trying to find new methods by integrating spectroscopy techniques with artificial intelligence and advanced materials. Within this progress report, advances in the detection of foodborne pathogens using spectroscopy techniques are discussed. This paper presents an overview of the progress and application of spectroscopy techniques for the detection of foodborne pathogens, particularly new trends in the past few years, including surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, surface plasmon resonance, fluorescence spectroscopy, multiangle laser light scattering, and imaging analysis. In addition, the applications of artificial intelligence, microfluidics, smartphone-based techniques, and advanced materials related to spectroscopy for the detection of bacterial pathogens are discussed. Finally, we conclude and discuss possible research prospects in aspects of spectroscopy techniques for the identification and classification of pathogens.

The pathologic characteristics and toxicity mechanism of Pseudomonas aeruginosa are different in strains with different Type III secretion system (T3SS) genes. The T3SS gene based genotyping of P. aeruginosa strains is important to understand its virulence and predict the clinical outcomes. In this study, a rapid and automatable method for T3SS genotyping was developed using magnetic enrichment multiplex PCR and chemiluminescence. Three P aeruginosa standard strains were analyzed using this method. The results showed that the chemiluminescent intensity of exoT, exoY, and exoS of these strains were 10 times greater than that of the control, and that their Q values were greater than 2.1. These results were consistent with the regular PCR and electrophoresis results, indicating that the method was reliable. Out of the 22 clinical isolates tested using this method, 100%, 72.7%, 95.5%, and 4.5% of the isolates contained exoT, exoY, exoS, and exoU genes, respectively. The isolates harbored either exoS or exoU gene, but not both. All genotyping results of the isolates were consistent with the information obtained using regular PCR and electrophoresis.

Tachyplesin I is a cationic peptide isolated from hemocytes of the horseshoe crab and its anti-tumor activity has been demonstrated in several tumor cells. However, there is limited information providing the global effects and mechanisms of tachyplesin I on glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Here, by using two complementary proteomic strategies (2D-DIGE and dimethyl isotope labeling-based shotgun proteomics), we explored the effect of tachyplesin I on the proteome of gliomaspheres, a three-dimensional growth model formed by a GBM cell line U251. In total, the expression levels of 192 proteins were found to be significantly altered by tachyplesin I treatment. Gene ontology (GO) analysis revealed that many of them were cytoskeleton proteins and lysosomal acid hydrolases, and the mostly altered biological process was related to cellular metabolism, especially glycolysis. Moreover, we built protein–protein interaction network of these proteins and suggested the important role of DNA topoisomerase 2-alpha (TOP2A) in the signal-transduction cascade of tachyplesin I. In conclusion, we propose that tachyplesin I might down-regulate cathepsins in lysosomes and up-regulate TOP2A to inhibit migration and promote apoptosis in glioma, thus contribute to its anti-tumor function. Our results suggest tachyplesin I is a potential candidate for treatment of glioma.