Hepatitis B remains a major global public health challenge, with particularly high prevalence in medically disadvantaged western Pacific and African regions. Although clinically available technologies for the qPCR detection of HBV are well established, research on point-of-care testing has not progressed substantially. The development of a rapid, accurate point-of-care test is essential for the prevention and control of hepatitis B in medically disadvantaged rural areas. The development of the CRISPR/Cas system in nucleic acid detection has allowed for pathogen point-of-care detection. Here, we developed a rapid and accurate point-of-care assay for HBV based on LAMP-Cas12a. It innovatively solves the problem of point-of-care testing in 10 min, particularly the problem of sample nucleic acid extraction. Based on LAMP-Cas12a, visualization of the assay results is presented by both a fluorescent readout and by lateral flow test strips. The lateral flow test strip technology can achieve results visible to the naked eye, while fluorescence readout can achieve real-time high-sensitivity detection. The fluorescent readout-based Cas12a assay can achieve HBV detection with a limit of detection of 1 copy/μL within 13 min, while the lateral flow test strip technique only takes 20 min. In the evaluation of 73 clinical samples, the sensitivity and specificity of both the fluorescence readout and lateral flow test strip method were 100%, and the results of the assay were fully comparable to qPCR. The LAMP-Cas12a-based HBV assay relies on minimal equipment to provide rapid, accurate test results and low costs, providing significant practical value for point-of-care HBV detection.
Purpose: cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women in the developing world, with high-risk HPV16 and HPV18 accounting for approximately 70% of all cervical cancers. Early detection of HPV, especially high-risk HPV types, is essential to prevent disease progression. Methods: in this study, we established a highly sensitive and specific nucleic acid assay based on a CRISPR-Cas13a/Cas12a dual-channel system combined with multiplex RAA for rapid detection and typing of HPV16/18, which provides a new idea for cervical cancer screening. To meet the application of field testing, we designed a portable fluorescence imaging assay that can judge the test results directly with the naked eye or through cell phone imaging. Results: the lower limit of detection for both HPV16 and HPV18 based on the CRISPR-Cas12a/Cas13a dual-channel assay was 100 copies per μL. The dual-channel assay was validated with 55 clinical samples, showing 97.06% sensitivity, 100% specificity, 100% positive predictive value, and 96.55% negative predictive value. The results of the portable fluorescence imaging assay were fully comparable to those of the real-time fluorescent RAA-based CRISPR-Cas12a/Cas13a dual-channel assay. Conclusions: this developed portable dual gene assay platform may provide new technical support for cervical cancer screening in resource-limited settings.