Digital CRISPR-based quantification of HIV-1

Abstract

Here, we demonstrate a membrane-based digital CRISPR-Cas13a system for amplification-free absolute quantification of viral particles of HIV-1. We established a stamping technique to digitalize the Cas13 assay inside a commercial track-etched polycarbonate (PCTE) membrane. We evaluated the performance of our system by quantifying the synthetic HIV-1 RNA, where a limit of detection of 100 aM was achieved in 30 min reaction. Absolute quantification of the viral particles HIV-1 in plasma background using our system confirmed that our system can quantify spiked samples.