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Early detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is an efficient way to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Detecting SARS-CoV-2 antigen can be rapid and convenient, but it is still challenging to develop highly sensitive methods for effective diagnosis. Herein, a lateral flow assay (LFA) based on fluorescent nanoparticles emitting in the second near-infrared (NIR-II) window is developed for sensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 antigen. Benefiting from the NIR-II fluorescence with high penetration and low autofluorescence, such NIR-II based LFA allows enhanced signal-to-background ratio, and the limit of detection is down to 0.01 ng·mL−1 of SARS-CoV-2 antigen. In the clinical swab sample tests, the NIR-II LFA outperforms the colloidal gold LFA with higher overall percent agreement with the polymerase chain reaction test. The clinical samples with low antigen concentrations (~ 0.015–~ 0.068 ng·mL−1) can be successfully detected by the NIR-II LFA, but fail for the colloidal gold LFA. The NIR-II LFA can provide a promising platform for highly sensitive, rapid, and cost-effective method for early diagnosis and mass screening of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 06 February 2022
Revised: 19 March 2022
Accepted: 22 March 2022
Published: 10 May 2022
Issue date: August 2022

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2022

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology-key research and development project (No. 2020B1111160003), Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission technology breakthrough project (No. JSGG20191231141403880), Shenzhen San-Ming Project (No. SZSM201809085), and Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission general project (No. JCYJ20180504165657443). Also, we are grateful to the Shenzhen Center for Disease Control and Prevention for providing and detecting the clinical samples.

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