Cas12a‐based systems, which detect specific nucleic acids via collateral cleavage of reporter DNA, display huge potentials for rapid diagnosis of infectious diseases. Here, the Manganese‐enhanced Cas12a (MeCas12a) system is described, where manganese is used to increase the detection sensitivity up to 13‐fold, enabling the detection of target RNAs as low as five copies. MeCas12a is also highly specific, and is able to distinguish between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) differing by a single nucleotide. MeCas12a can detect severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) in clinical samples and distinguish between SARS‐CoV‐2 and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS‐CoV) RNA in simulated samples, thus offering an attractive alternative to other methods for the diagnosis of infectious diseases including COVID‐19 and MERS.

中文翻译：

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MeCas12a，一种用于检测 COVID-19 的高灵敏度和特异性系统

基于 Cas12a 的系统通过报告 DNA 的附带裂解来检测特定核酸，在快速诊断传染病方面显示出巨大的潜力。这里描述了锰增强的 Cas12a (MeCas12a) 系统，其中锰用于将检测灵敏度提高至 13 倍，从而能够检测低至 5 个拷贝的目标 RNA。MeCas12a 还具有高度特异性，能够区分单个核苷酸不同的单核苷酸多态性 (SNP)。MeCas12a 可以检测临床样本中的严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒 2 (SARS-CoV-2)，并区分模拟样本中的 SARS-CoV-2 和中东呼吸综合征冠状病毒 (MERS-CoV) RNA，从而为其他检测方法提供了有吸引力的替代方案包括 COVID-19 和 MERS 在内的传染病的诊断方法。