Paper-based nucleic acid testing system for simple and early diagnosis of mosquito-borne RNA viruses from human serum.

The recent outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases (e.g., zika, dengue, and chikungunya) increased public health burden in developing countries. To control the spread of these infectious diseases, a simple, economic, reliable, sensitive, and selective diagnostic platform is required. Considering demand for affordable and accessible methods, we have demonstrated a two-step strategy for extraction and detection of viral RNAs of infectious diseases within 1 h. Ready-to-use devices for viral RNA extraction and detection were successfully fabricated using paper as a substrate. Viral RNA (e.g., zika, dengue, and chikungunya) was captured and eluted using a handheld RNA extraction paper-strip device, and another paper-chip device was used for reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assay with a detection limit of a single copy and 10 copies of viral RNA in phosphate buffer solution (PBS) and serum, respectively. With these proposed devices, we have detected viral RNAs of zika and dengue in clinical human serum samples. The proposed paper-based extraction and detection platforms could be employed for detection of infectious viral diseases from complex clinical samples in resource-limited settings. Image 1 • A paper-based nucleic acid extraction, amplification, and detection system was demonstrated. • The viral RNAs of zika, dengue, and chikungunya were extracted and detected in two steps. • The sensitive and selective detection of zika viral RNA spiked in PBS buffer and serum samples were achieved. • Viral-infected clinical samples were tested positive for zika and dengue with the proposed detection system. • A universal ready-to-use detection system could be prepared by changing capture probes and RT-LAMP primers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]