Application of microfluidic technologies on COVID-19 diagnosis and drug discovery

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has boosted the development of antiviral research. Microfluidic technologies offer powerful platforms for diagnosis and drug discovery for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) diagnosis and drug discovery. In this review, we introduce the structure of SARS-CoV-2 and the basic knowledge of microfluidic design. We discuss the application of microfluidic devices in SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis based on detecting viral nucleic acid, antibodies, and antigens. We highlight the contribution of lab-on-a-chip to manufacturing point-of-care equipment of accurate, sensitive, low-cost, and user-friendly virus-detection devices. We then investigate the efforts in organ-on-a-chip and lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) synthesizing chips in antiviral drug screening and mRNA vaccine preparation. Microfluidic technologies contribute to the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 research efforts and provide tools for future viral outbreaks. Graphical Microfluidic technologies play an important role in virus pandemic. This review highlights the applications of microfluidic chip in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 detection and drug discovery.Image 1

Application of microfluidic technologies on COVID-19 diagnosis and drug discovery.

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has boosted the development of antiviral research. Microfluidic technologies offer powerful platforms for diagnosis and drug discovery for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) diagnosis and drug discovery. In this review, we introduce the structure of SARS-CoV-2 and the basic knowledge of microfluidic design. We discuss the application of microfluidic devices in SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis based on detecting viral nucleic acid, antibodies, and antigens. We highlight the contribution of lab-on-a-chip to manufacturing point-of-care equipment of accurate, sensitive, low-cost, and user-friendly virus-detection devices. We then investigate the efforts in organ-on-a-chip and lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) synthesizing chips in antiviral drug screening and mRNA vaccine preparation. Microfluidic technologies contribute to the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 research efforts and provide tools for future viral outbreaks.

A Dual-Encoded Bead-Based Immunoassay with Tunable Detection Range for COVID-19 Serum Evaluation.

Serological assay for coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) patients including asymptomatic cases can inform on disease progression and prognosis. A detection method taking into account multiplex, high sensitivity, and a wider detection range will help to identify and treat COVID-19. Here we integrated color-size dual-encoded beads and rolling circle amplification (RCA) into a bead-based fluorescence immunoassay implemented in a size sorting chip to achieve high-throughput and sensitive detection. We used the assay for quantifying COVID-19 antibodies against spike S1, nucleocapsid, the receptor binding domain antigens. It also detected inflammatory biomarkers including interleukin-6, interleukin-1ß, procalcitonin, C-reactive protein whose concentrations range from pg mL-1 to µg mL-1 . Use of different size beads integrating with RCA results in a tunable detection range. The assay can be readily modified to simultaneously measure more COVID-19 serological molecules differing by orders of magnitude.