A colloidal gold test strip based on catalytic hairpin assembly for the clinical detection of influenza a virus nucleic acid

Influenza A epidemics, which occur annually in varying degrees worldwide, is a global challenge to healthcare facilities owing to several limitations of the current detection methods. Therefore, the development of a rapid, convenient, and economical method for the early diagnosis of influenza A will aid clinical treatment and epidemic control. Currently, most of the commonly used clinical rapid tests utilize colloidal gold test strips that detect specific influenza virus antigens but are limited by low sensitivity. Therefore, this study combined catalytic hairpin assembly (CHA) with colloidal gold immunochromatographic assay (GICA) to develop a highly sensitive and visual CHA-GICA test strip. Clinical sample analysis revealed that the sensitivity of the assay was 81.8% and 74% under optimal (35 °C) and room temperature (25 °C) conditions, respectively. In conclusion, this study developed a rapid nucleic acid assay for detecting influenza A virus with high sensitivity and specificity, which can improve the clinical detection of influenza A.