Capability of novel fluorescence DNA-conjugated CdTe/ZnS quantum dots nanoprobe for COVID-19 sensing

Urgent identification of COVID-19 in infected patients is highly important nowadays. Forster or fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) is a powerful and sensitive method for nanosensing applications, and quantum dots are essential materials in FRET-based nanosensors. The QDs are conjugated to DNA or RNA and used in many applications. Therefore, in the present study, novel fluorescence DNA-conjugated CdTe/ZnS quantum dots nanoprobe designed for detection of Covid-19 after extracting their RNA from saliva of hesitant people. For achieving this purpose, the water-soluble CdTe/ZnS QDs-DNA prepared via replacing the thioglycolic acid (TGA) on the surface of QDs with capture DNA (thiolated DNA) throw a ligand-exchange method. Subsequently, by adding the different concentrations of complementary (target DNA) in a mixture of quencher DNA (BHQ(2) -labeled DNA) and the QDs-DNA conjugates at different conditions, sandwiched hybrids were formed. The results showed that the fluorescence intensity was decreased with increasing the concentration of target DNA (as a positive control). The linear equation and regression (Y = 40.302 X + 1 and R-2 = 0.98) were obtained by using the Stern-Volmer relationship. The Limit of detection (LOD) was determined 0.000823 mu M. The achieved results well confirm the outcomes of the RT-PCR method in real samples. (C) 2021 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Automated summary

The urgent identification of COVID-19 in infected patients is of great importance. In this study, a novel fluorescence DNA-conjugated CdTe/ZnS quantum dots nanoprobe was designed for the detection of COVID-19 in saliva samples. The results showed that this method achieved similar detection results compared to the traditional RT-PCR method.