Cyclopentane peptide nucleic acid: Gold nanoparticle conjugates for the detection of nucleic acids in a microfluidic format

Routine patient testing for viral infections is critical to identify infected individuals for treatment and to prevent spreading of infections to others. Developing robust and reliable diagnostic tools to detect nucleic acids of viruses at the point-of-care (POC) could greatly assist the clinical management of viral infections. The remarkable stability and high binding affinity of peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) to target nucleic acids could make PNA-based biosensors an excellent starting point to develop new nucleic acid detection technologies. We report the application of cyclopentane-modified PNAs to capture target nucleic acids in a microfluidic channel, and the use of bioorthogonal PNAs conjugated to gold nanoparticles as probes to semi-quantitatively signal the presence of a target nucleic acid derived from HIV-1. The basic results presented could be used to develop more advanced devices to detect nucleic acids from viruses such as HIV, SARS-CoV-2, and a wide range of other human diseases.