Toward Detection of Heart Failure: Development of a Sensitive Fluorescent Kit for Clinical sST2 Detection

Abstract

Heart failure, the terminal stage of various cardiovascular diseases, typically presents with subtle early symptoms that are difficult to detect. Consequently, developing fast and accurate diagnostic tools is essential for effective early diagnosis and disease management. Soluble suppression of tumorigenicity 2 (sST2) is recognized as a valuable biomarker for predicting disease severity and mortality in cardiovascular disease, making it a promising target for developing a detection kit for early heart failure diagnosis. Recently, the CRISPR-Cas12a system has been increasingly used for quick and sensitive nucleic acid detection. However, its application in protein detection remains limited. In this study, we combined nanotechnology-mediated protein capture with the CRISPR-Cas12a system and developed a fluorescence-based method for rapid and sensitive detection of sST2. The presence of sST2 triggers the formation of a ternary complex, which can activate the trans-cleavage activity of Cas12a, resulting in cleavage of the response DNA single strand and the production of a fluorescent signal. Importantly, when tested on serum samples, this method can effectively distinguish patients with heart failure from healthy controls. This method offers a promising alternative to traditional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs), with potential advantages in operational simplicity and detection speed. Therefore, this innovative fluorescence-based sST2 detection technique has significant potential for the clinical diagnosis of heart failure.