CRISPR-Cas12a Test Strip (CRISPR/CAST) Package: Poverty Family Pasture
Health Patron Saint for Livestocks Free from Brucella Infection
Abstract
Brucellosis is a common zoonotic disease caused by Brucella,
which causes enormous economic loss and public burden to the epidemic
areas. Earlier and precise diagnosis and timely culling of infected
animals are crucial to prevent the infection of Brucella and the
spread of the disease. In recent years, RNA-guided CRISPR/Cas12a
nucleases have shown great promise in nucleic acid detection. This
research aims to develop a CRISPR/CAST (CRISPR/Cas12a Test strip)
package that can rapidly detect Brucella nucleic acid on-site
screening, especially on the remote family pasture. Clustered Regularly
Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) and its associated
protein 12a (Cas12a), the CRISPR/Cas12a system combined with recombinase
polymerase amplification(RPA), and lateral flow read-out. The
CRISPR/CAST package can complete the assay of Brucella nucleic
acid within 30 min under isothermal temperature conditions, with a
sensitivity of 10 copies/μl, and no antigen cross-reacting against
Yersinia enterocolitica O:9 , Escherichia coli O157
, Salmonella enterica serovar Urbana O:30 , and
Francisella tularensis. The serum samples of 398 sheep and 100
cattle were tested by CRISPR/CAST package, of which 31 sheep and 8
cattle were Brucella DNA positive. The detection rate was
consistent with the qPCR and higher than the Rose Bengal Test (RBT, 19
sheep, and 5 cattle were serum positive). CRISPR/CAST package can
accurately detect the infected livestock’s Brucella DNA and
accomplish within 30 min, which has the advantages of simple, fast, high
sensitivity, and strong specificity, with no window period. Besides, the
package needs no expensive equipment, standard laboratory, or
professional operators. It is an effective tool for field screening and
earlier, rapid diagnosis of Brucella infection. A package is an
efficient tool for epidemic prevention and control.