Recent Advances in DNA Nanotechnology-Enabled Biosensors for Virus Detection

Abstract

Virus-related infectious diseases are serious threats to humans, which makes virus detection of great importance. Traditional virus-detection methods usually suffer from low sensitivity and specificity, are time-consuming, have a high cost, etc. Recently, DNA biosensors based on DNA nanotechnology have shown great potential in virus detection. DNA nanotechnology, specifically DNA tiles and DNA aptamers, has achieved atomic precision in nanostructure construction. Exploiting the programmable nature of DNA nanostructures, researchers have developed DNA nanobiosensors that outperform traditional virus-detection methods. This paper reviews the history of DNA tiles and DNA aptamers, and it briefly describes the Baltimore classification of virology. Moreover, the advance of virus detection by using DNA nanobiosensors is discussed in detail and compared with traditional virus-detection methods. Finally, challenges faced by DNA nanobiosensors in virus detection are summarized, and a perspective on the future development of DNA nanobiosensors in virus detection is also provided.