ArticleNature communications2021
An engineered CRISPR-Cas12a variant and DNA-RNA hybrid guides enable robust and rapid COVID-19 testing.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 89 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
89 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 205 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evaluation of CRISPR-Based Assays for Rapid Detection of SARS-CoV-2: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Yonsei medical journal · 2022Pooled it
- RAPID: evaluation of Cas12a protospacer nicking and chimeric reporters for PAM-independent RNA and DNA diagnostics.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Thermodynamically programmed one-pot CRISPR platform for point-of-care SNP genotyping.Nature communications · 2026Article
- CRISPR diagnostics: from trans-nuclease activity to cancer diagnosis.Cell & bioscience · 2026Review
- Molecular engineering of CRISPR/Cas12a: from activity enhancement to exponential signal amplification.Chemical science · 2026Review
- Elimination of cis-cleavage in CRISPR diagnostics for one-pot rapid nucleic acid detection.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Engineered CRISPR-Cas13a system with enhanced target RNA cleavage activity and reduced collateral activity for therapeutic applications.Molecular therapy. Nucleic acids · 2026Article
- A CRISPR/LbCas12a system for Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto detection in blacklegged ticks.Journal of medical entomology · 2026Article
- Identification of thermotolerant non-canonical PAMs for robust one-pot CRISPR-Cas12a detection.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Digital CRISPR-based diagnostics for quantification of Candida auris and resistance mutations.Nature biomedical engineering · 2026Article
- CRISPR/Cas12a2 enables ultra-sensitive amplification-free RNA detection.Nucleic acids research · 2025Article
- CRISPR-assisted MoSMikrochimica acta · 2025Article
- Engineered crRNA Drives RPA-T7-CRISPR/Cas14a Cascade for Ultrasensitive Detection of ctDNA PIK3CA H1047R.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Tailoring Cas12a functionality with a user-friendly and versatile crRNA variant toolbox.Nature communications · 2025Article
- AsCas12a tolerates insertions in target DNA.Nucleic acids research · 2025Article
- CRISPR-Cas technologies: Emerging tools from research to clinical application.Journal of microbiology (Seoul, Korea) · 2025Review
- Recent advances in CRISPR-based single-nucleotide fidelity diagnostics.Communications medicine · 2025Review
- Enhancement of CRISPR-Cas12a system through universal circular RNA design.Cell reports methods · 2025Article
- Multiplex detection of respiratory RNA viruses without amplification based on CRISPR-Cas13a immunochromatographic test strips.Virology journal · 2025Article
- Enhanced the Trans-Cleavage Activity of CRISPR-Cas12a Using Metal-Organic Frameworks as Stimulants for Efficient Electrochemical Sensing of Circulating Tumor DNA.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
29 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Extensive testing is essential to break the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, which causes the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we present a CRISPR-based diagnostic assay that is robust to viral genome mutations and temperature, produces results fast, can be applied directly on nasopharyngeal (NP) specimens without RNA purification, and incorporates a human internal control within the same reaction. Specifically, we show that the use of an engineered AsCas12a enzyme enables detection of wildtype and mutated SARS-CoV-2 and allows us to perform the detection step with loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) at 60-65 °C. We also find that the use of hybrid DNA-RNA guides increases the rate of reaction, enabling our test to be completed within 30 minutes. Utilizing clinical samples from 72 patients with COVID-19 infection and 57 healthy individuals, we demonstrate that our test exhibits a specificity and positive predictive value of 100% with a sensitivity of 50 and 1000 copies per reaction (or 2 and 40 copies per microliter) for purified RNA samples and unpurified NP specimens respectively.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.