Genosensor eletroquímico para detecção de SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

Recent data obtained of the World Health Organization reported seven million deaths from SARS-CoV-2 in the world. The virus primarily infects respiratory cells, triggering inflammatory responses and affecting various body systems, being age and comorbidities worsen disease severity and mortality. Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is the gold standard for SARS-CoV-2 detection but has limitations. Electrochemical genosensors offer cost-effective alternatives leveraging advantages, like selectivity and response time. In this work, silver-doped zinc oxide nanomaterial (ZnOAgNP) was used onto carbon screen-printed electrode and ethidium bromide as indicator for COVID-19 electrochemical genosensor development. The genosensor demonstrated a good linearity between the concentrations of 2x 10-5 to 2 x 10-9 mol l-1 and detection limit of 13 pmol l-1, was able to detect the probe’s complementary target in spiked and gRNA in patients samples. For first time, to the best of our knowledge, this a first genosensor using silver-doped zinc oxide nanomaterial, being the most stable genosensor for COVID-19, found in the literature. Keywords: COVID-19; modified electrode; genosensor; nanomaterial; SARS; ZnOAgNP.