Dissolvable sugar barriers to enhance the sensitivity of nitrocellulose membrane lateral flow assay for COVID-19 nucleic acid

Nitrocellulose (NC) membrane can have value-added applications for lateral flow assay (LFA)-based diagnostic tools, which has great potential for the detection of pathogens, such as COVID-19, in different environments. However, poor sensitivity of the NC membrane based LFA limits its further application in many cases. Herein, we developed a facile method for LFA sensitivity enhancement, by incorporating two-sugar barrier into LFAs: one between the conjugation pad and the test line, and the other between the test line and the control line. ORF1ab nucleic acid of COVID-19 was used as the model target to demonstrate the concept on the HF120 membrane. Results show that at optimum conditions, the two sugar barrier LFAs have a detection limit of 0.5 nM, which is compared to that of 2.5 nM for the control LFA, achieving a 5-fold sensitivity increase. This low cost, easy-to-fabricate and easy-to-integrate LFA method may have potential applications in other cellulose paper-based platforms.