Absolute and Amplified Virus Detection by Isotope Dilution after Catalytic Hairpin Assembly

Abstract The detection of viruses is of great significance for the diagnosis of related diseases. However, current virus detection often faces two challenges: first, due to the complex matrix of physiological samples, detection methods often fail to provide accurate quantitative results; second, conventional PCR-related signal amplification procedures are often challenged by issues such as primer interference and non-specific amplification. Herein, we developed an absolute and amplified virus detection strategy by coupling isotope dilution and catalytic hairpin assembly (CHA). The high-risk cervical cancer-related biomarkers were detected with a wide linear detection range (5-30,000 pM) and detection limits in the pM level. To our best knowledge, this is the first amplified metal isotope dilution quantification strategy for biomolecules.