U.S. scientists have developed "gene test paper" to detect virus and tumor DNA.

Zhang Feng, a Chinese-American expert at the Broad Institute in the United States, has developed a "gene test paper" that successfully detects tumor markers in some patients with viral and lung cancer in the laboratory.
published in the U.S. journal Science on the 15th, just immerse the "gene test paper" in the processed sample, a line will show whether the target molecule was detected. Zhang Feng, one of the inventors of CRISPR gene editing, says the tool can be used to detect nucleic acids such as viruses and tumor DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and is cheap, convenient and efficient.
test paper is based on the gene-testing tool "Sherlock" developed by Zhang Feng's team, named after the novel's character detective Sherlock Holmes, and is made up of the English part of the letter "specific high sensitivity enzyme-induced unlocking."
this tool is similar to the structure of the current hot-spot gene scissors , CRISPR-Cas9 , and consists of gRNA ( wizard RNA ) and gene shear protein , but the shear protein used by Sherlock is Cas13.
the researchers explain that Cas13 continues to cut the RNA around it after it is cut open, and they use this "off-target" defect to add a fluorescent marker with RNA that, when the marker is cut off, emits a fluorescent signal to show the results.
in a newly published study, Zhang Feng's team improved the sensitivity of Sherlock. Initially a molecule can be detected per microliter of blood sample, but now the sensitivity is 100 times higher than before, and it is high in free DNA from tumor cells that can be detected from blood samples in lung cancer patients.
, the gene test paper can detect up to 4 targets at a time, saving sample usage. For example, the Zika virus has similar symptoms after infection with dengue virus, and the use of "genetic test paper" can detect what kind of virus is in the bleeding sample at once.
" the technology is widely used in the health field, including detecting infectious diseases and detecting genetic variants that cause drug resistance and cancer. Zhang Feng said. In previous studies, Sherlock was also able to identify genes that produce antibiotic-resistant bacteria, distinguish some strains of E. coli, and so on.
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