Fluorous-based diagnostic platform for multiplexed diagnosis and differentiation of viral infections

病毒感染是全球人口和农业面临的最大威胁之一。要成功地预防、监测和治疗病毒感染，就需要有快速可靠的诊断方法，这种方法不仅能灵敏地、而且能迅速地检测到感兴趣的病毒感染，并区分病毒感染。这一点在冬季尤其重要，因为在冬季，快速诊断SARS-CoV-2相对于流感病毒株出现的病毒感染是必不可少的，以帮助医生提出最适当的干预和治疗建议。目前，还没有方法可以在低成本的护理设备中快速检测病毒感染。我们建议开发一种生物传感技术，不仅可以检测病毒成分，而且具有平台可重复使用和可再生的潜力。这些发展的核心是使用氟技术作为一种工具来固定检测病毒成分的元件。与特氟龙非常相似的是，氟技术具有双重优势，既可以固定具有互补氟标记的分子成分，又可以减少与非氟生物分子的非特异性结合，从而提高了方法的灵敏度。此外，通过用有机溶剂的简单洗涤步骤，氟定向的固定化事件本质上是可逆的。在这项提案中，我们将展示检测病毒RNA(通过RT-PCR)或蛋白质(通过直接检测完整的病毒颗粒)的策略的模块化。这将为生物科学提供一个强大的新工具，有可能用于任何需要快速检测病原体感染的应用。

Viral infections pose one of the biggest global threats to human populations and agriculture. Successful prevention, monitoring and treatment of viral infections requires the availability of fast and reliable diagnostic methods which can not only sensitively, but rapidly detect a viral infection of interest and differentiate between viral infections. This is particularly important in the winter months where rapid diagnosis of viral infections emerging from SARS-Cov-2 relative to influenza strains is essential in order to assist medical practitioners to suggest the most appropriate interventions and treatment.At present, methods do not exist which can rapidly detect viral infections in a low-cost, point-of-care device. We propose to develop a biosensing technology which can not only detect viral components, but also has the potential for the platform to be reusable and regeneratable. Central to these developments is the use of fluorous technology as a tool to immobilise elements which detect viral components. Much akin to Teflon, fluorous technology has the dual advantage as a method which can immobilise molecular components which have a complementary fluorous tag, and reduces non-specific binding to non-fluorous biomolecules, thus improving the sensitivity of the approach. Furthermore, the fluorous-directed immobilisation event is inherently reversible by a simple washing step with organic solvent. In this proposal, we will demonstrate the modularity of the strategy to detect viral RNA (by RT-PCR) or protein (by direct detection of intact viral particles). This will provide a powerful new tool for the biosciences which has the potential to be used for any application which requires rapid detection of pathogenic infections.