Real-time, selective, and low-cost detection of trace level SARS-CoV-2 spike-protein for cold-chain food quarantine

Due to the friendly temperature for virus survival, SARS-CoV-2 is frequently found in cold-chain foods, posing a serious threat to public health. Utilizing an interdigitated microelectrode chip modified with an antibody probe and integrating dielectrophoresis enrichment with interfacial capacitance sensing, a strategy is presented for the detection of trace level spike-protein from SARS-CoV-2. It achieves a limit of detection as low as 2.29 × 10⁻¹⁰ ng/mL in 20 s, with a wide linear range of 10⁻⁵-10⁻¹ ng/mL and a selectivity of 234:1. The cost for a single test can be controlled to ~1 dollar. This strategy provides a competitive solution for real-time, sensitive, selective, and large-scale application in cold-chain food quarantine.