Virus Biosensing

A special issue of Viruses (ISSN 1999-4915). This special issue belongs to the section "General Virology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2025 | Viewed by 675

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
Interests: design and develop a variety of fluorescence analysis technologies for the early diagnosis of diseases and answer basic scientific questions in virology; synthetic biosensors for disease diagnosis and food safety; design and synthesis of fluorescence nanoprobes; virus labelling and tracking

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The outbreak of infectious viruses presents one of the greatest threats to public healthcare systems. Controlling the spread of these viruses continues to be a global challenge. Early and accurate virus diagnosis is crucial for preventing virus transmission, especially when lacking a specific vaccine or effective medicine. Several methods have been constructed for viral detection in clinics, including molecular diagnosis and immunoassays for measuring nucleic acids or protein biomarkers. However, most molecular diagnosis-based methods require complex infrastructure and expensive equipment, which are not suitable for resource-limited settings. Most immunoassays, such as lateral flow assays, show high speed, but their sensitivity is limited for accurate diagnosis. Various new emerging diagnosis technologies, including CRISPR/Cas system, DNA nanotechnology, microfluidics, and smartphone-based point-of-care testing, have been developed to enhance sensitivity, speed, specificity, and portability.

Therefore, we invite researchers from around the world to submit original research and review articles focused on emerging methods for virus detection, including nucleic acid amplification, CRISPR-based detection, DNA nanotechnology, point-of-care testing, etc.

Dr. Guobin Mao
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • virus detection
  • molecular diagnosis
  • immunoassay
  • nucleic acid amplification
  • CRISPR-based detection
  • nucleic acid assembly
  • biosensor
  • point-of-care testing

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

14 pages, 1252 KB  
Article
Metatranscriptomic Analysis of Oropharyngeal Samples Reveals Common Respiratory Viruses and a Potential Interspecies Transmitted Picobirnavirus in the Wayuu Population, La Guajira, Colombia
by Beatriz Elena De arco-Rodríguez, Jhindy Tatiana Pérez-Lozada, Katherine Laiton-Donato, Dioselina Peláez-Carvajal, Gloria Mercedes Puerto-Castro and Diego Alejandro Álvarez-Díaz
Viruses 2025, 17(10), 1397; https://doi.org/10.3390/v17101397 - 21 Oct 2025
Viewed by 335
Abstract
Acute respiratory infections and other infectious diseases causing acute febrile syndrome are major public health concerns in Colombia, particularly among vulnerable populations such as the Wayuu Indigenous community in Manaure, La Guajira. To investigate their viral etiology, 55 nasopharyngeal swabs and 58 serum [...] Read more.
Acute respiratory infections and other infectious diseases causing acute febrile syndrome are major public health concerns in Colombia, particularly among vulnerable populations such as the Wayuu Indigenous community in Manaure, La Guajira. To investigate their viral etiology, 55 nasopharyngeal swabs and 58 serum samples were collected from febrile Wayuu individuals in Manaure. RT-qPCR screening identified Coronavirus, Enteroviruses, Adenovirus, and Influenza A/B in respiratory samples, while no arboviruses were detected in serum. Sixteen representative samples underwent metatranscriptomic next-generation sequencing (mtNGS) using the Chan-Zuckerberg ID (CZ-ID) platform. This analysis confirmed RT-qPCR findings and additionally revealed six viral contigs related to Orthopicobirnavirus hominis. Sequencing coverage enabled the reconstruction of a consensus RdRp segment, which was phylogenetically compared with sequences from diverse hosts. The virus clustered within genogroup 1, alongside Colombian isolates linked to severe acute respiratory infection. The absence of strict host-specific clustering suggests possible interspecies transmission. These findings underscore the complementary roles of targeted and unbiased approaches: RT-qPCR detected common respiratory viruses, whereas mtNGS uncovered a virus previously unreported in this community. Overall, mtNGS emerges as a powerful tool to support viral surveillance and provide baseline evidence in indigenous populations, emphasizing the need to decentralize advanced molecular diagnostics and strengthen public health capacity in Colombia. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Virus Biosensing)
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