An Exploration of Nanoparticle-Based Diagnostic Approaches for Coronaviruses: SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV

Abstract

The wildfire-like spread of COVID-19, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus-2, has resulted in a pandemic that has put unprecedented stress on the world's healthcare systems and caused varying severities of socio-economic damage. As there are no specific treatments to combat the virus, current approaches to overcome the crisis have mainly revolved around vaccination efforts, preventing human-to-human transmission through enforcement of lockdowns and repurposing of drugs. To efficiently facilitate the measures implemented by governments, rapid and accurate diagnosis of the disease is vital. Reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction and computed tomography have been the standard procedures to diagnose and evaluate COVID-19. However, disadvantages, including the necessity of specialized equipment and trained personnel, the high financial cost of operation and the emergence of false negatives, have hindered their application in high-demand and resource-limited sites. Nanoparticle-based methods of diagnosis have been previously reported to provide precise results within short periods of time. Such methods have been studied in previous outbreaks of coronaviruses, including severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus and middle east respiratory syndrome coronavirus. Given the need for rapid diagnostic techniques, this review discusses nanoparticle use in detecting the aforementioned coronaviruses and the recent severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus-2 to highlight approaches that could potentially be used during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; MERS-CoV; SARS-CoV; SARS-CoV-2; coronaviruses; diagnostic techniques; nanoparticles.

Figure 1

Illustration of top-down and bottom-up nanoparticle synthesis Methods. Reproduced from [28] under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Figure 2

Illustration of SARS-CoV-2 replication cycle. Reproduced from [43] under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Figure 3

Disulfide bond-based colorimetric assay developed by Kim et al. for MERS-CoV detection. The color change is determined by whether the gene target is absent (a) or present (b). Repurposed from [80].

Figure 4

Basic schematic representation of the genosensor device developed by Martinez-Paredes et al. [86].

Figure 5

(A) An illustration of the developed lateral flow strip; (B) An illustration of the assay, incorporating the LNPs as fluorescent signalers [92].

Figure 6

Illustration of rapid SARS-CoV-2 IgM-IgM combined antibody test. (A) Schematic of detection device; (B) Illustrations of different possible results (C: Control line; G: IgG line; M: IgM line). Reproduced from [94] under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Figure 7

(a) Illustration of functionalized magnetic NPs; (b) illustration of SARS-CoV-2 mimic; (c) magnetic particle spectroscopy signal with and without SARS-CoV-2 mimic. Reprinted (adapted) with permission from Zhong et al., Toward Rapid and Sensitive Detection of SARS-CoV-2 with Functionalized Magnetic Nanoparticles. ACS Sens. 2021, 6, 976–984, doi:10.1021/acssensors.0c02160. Copyright 2021 American Chemical Society.