Azienda Ospedaliero, Universitaria Policlinico "G. Rodolico-San Marco", Via Santa Sofia 78, 95123 Catania, Italy.
CNR-IPCF, Istituto per i Processi Chimico-Fisici, Viale F. Stagno D'Alcontres 37, 98158 Messina, Italy.
Biomolecules. 2021 Oct 27;11(11):1585. doi: 10.3390/biom11111585.
The analysis of viral nucleic acids (NA), DNA or RNA, is a crucial issue in the diagnosis of infections and the treatment and prevention of related human diseases. Conventional nucleic acid tests (NATs) require multistep approaches starting from the purification of the pathogen genetic material in biological samples to the end of its detection, basically performed by the consolidated polymerase chain reaction (PCR), by the use of specialized instruments and dedicated laboratories. However, since the current NATs are too constraining and time and cost consuming, the research is evolving towards more integrated, decentralized, user-friendly, and low-cost methods. These will allow the implementation of massive diagnoses addressing the growing demand of fast and accurate viral analysis facing such global alerts as the pandemic of coronavirus disease of the recent period. Silicon-based technology and microfluidics, in this sense, brought an important step up, leading to the introduction of the genetic point-of-care (PoC) systems. This review goes through the evolution of the analytical methods for the viral NA diagnosis of infection diseases, highlighting both advantages and drawbacks of the innovative emerging technologies versus the conventional approaches.
病毒核酸（NA），即 DNA 或 RNA 的分析，是感染诊断、相关人类疾病治疗和预防的关键问题。传统的核酸检测（NAT）需要从生物样本中病原体遗传物质的纯化开始，到其检测结束的多步骤方法，基本上通过聚合酶链反应（PCR）来完成，使用专门的仪器和专用实验室。然而，由于目前的 NAT 过于受限，且耗时耗成本，因此研究正在朝着更集成、分散化、用户友好和低成本的方法发展。这些方法将允许实施大规模诊断，以满足快速和准确的病毒分析的需求，应对近期冠状病毒病大流行等全球警报所带来的日益增长的需求。在这方面，基于硅的技术和微流控技术带来了重要的进步，导致了基因即时检测（PoC）系统的引入。本文综述了感染性疾病病毒 NA 诊断分析方法的演变，突出了创新新兴技术与传统方法相比的优缺点。
