Infectious diseases are one of the most intimidating threats to human race, responsible for an immense burden of disabilities and deaths. Rapid diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases offers a better understanding of their pathogenesis. According to the World Health Organization, the ideal approach for detecting foreign pathogens should be rapid, specific, sensitive, instrument-free, and cost-effective. Nucleic acid pathogen detection methods, typically PCR, have numerous limitations, such as highly sophisticated equipment requirements, reagents, and trained personnel relying on well-established laboratories, besides being time-consuming. Thus, there is a crucial need to develop novel nucleic acid detection tools that are rapid, specific, sensitive, and cost-effective, particularly ones that can be used for versatile point-of-care diagnostic applications. Two new methods exploit unpredicted in vitro properties of CRISPR-Cas effectors, turning activated nucleases into basic amplifiers of a specific nucleic acid binding event. These effectors can be attached to a diversity of reporters and utilized in tandem with isothermal amplification approaches to create sensitive identification in multiple deployable field formats. Although still in their beginning, SHERLOCK and DETECTR technologies are potential methods for rapid detection and identification of infectious diseases, with ultrasensitive tests that do not require complicated processing. This review describes SHERLOCK and DETECTR technologies and assesses their properties, functions, and prospective to become the ultimate diagnostic tools for diagnosing infectious diseases and curbing disease outbreaks.

中文翻译：

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SHERLOCK 和 DETECTR：CRISPR-Cas 系统作为新发传染病的潜在快速诊断工具


传染病是对人类最可怕的威胁之一，造成巨大的残疾和死亡负担。传染病的快速诊断和治疗可以更好地了解其发病机制。世界卫生组织认为，检测外来病原体的理想方法应该是快速、特异、灵敏、无需仪器且具有成本效益。核酸病原体检测方法（通常是 PCR）除了耗时之外，还具有许多局限性，例如高度复杂的设备要求、试剂和依赖完善实验室的训练有素的人员。因此，迫切需要开发快速、特异、灵敏且经济高效的新型核酸检测工具，特别是可用于多功能即时诊断应用的工具。两种新方法利用 CRISPR-Cas 效应子的不可预测的体外特性，将激活的核酸酶转化为特定核酸结合事件的基本放大器。这些效应器可以连接到各种报告器上，并与等温扩增方法结合使用，以在多种可部署的现场格式中创建敏感识别。尽管仍处于起步阶段，SHERLOCK 和 DETECTR 技术是快速检测和识别传染病的潜在方法，其超灵敏测试不需要复杂的处理。本综述介绍了 SHERLOCK 和 DETECTR 技术，并评估了它们的特性、功能以及成为诊断传染病和遏制疾病爆发的终极诊断工具的前景。