Pathogen detection strategy based on CRISPR

Accurate and rapid detection of pathogens is essential for food safety, epidemic prevention, disease diagnosis and environmental monitoring. So far, many CRISPR/Cas systems have been gradually developed as new biosensing tools for biological nucleic acid detection. These effectors are coupled with existing nucleic acid amplification methods to produce sensitive, sequence-specific pathogen identification in multiple field-deployable formats. With the maturity of CRISPR technology, researchers have achieved detection signal amplification by combining nanotechnology and various biosensor technologies, which not only greatly improves the sensitivity and specificity of detection, but also enriches signal output forms. Hence, the classification of CRISPR-Cas systems and the properties of Cas effectors in Class2 are outlined. Furthermore, we also highlight the ways to improve pathogen detection performance based on CRISPR/Cas biosensors. The challenges and directions of this field of CRISPR/Cas-based biosensors are further discussed.