Recent Advances in Silica-Nanomaterial-Assisted Lateral Flow Assay

Abstract

Lateral flow assays (LFAs) have attracted much attention as rapid and affordable point-of-care devices for medical diagnostics. The global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has further highlighted the importance of LFAs. Many efforts have been made to enhance the sensitivity of LFAs. In recent years, silica nanomaterials have been used to either amplify the signal of label materials or provide stability, resulting in better detection performance. In this review, the recent progress of silica-nanomaterial-assisted LFAs is summarized. The impact of the structure of silica nanomaterials on LFA performance, the challenges and prospects in this research area are also discussed.

Lateral Flow Assay Biotesting by Utilizing Plasmonic Nanoparticles Made of Inexpensive Metals─Replacing Colloidal Gold

“…We should also comment on other inexpensive materials for LFAs, such as latex, polystyrene, carbon, quantum dots, magnetic NPs, and upconversion NPs, among others. − However, several of these LFAs require sophisticated equipment for reading out the results, hence delaying a possible diagnosis. − Additionally, these materials do not show the benefits of plasmonic systems, such as propagating/localized surface plasmon resonance (SPR), surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), fluorescence and infrared absorption spectroscopy, among others, broadening the possible applications in which our NPs could be used. For example, our functionalized NPs could perform similarly to the Au NPs used in a recent study that built a plasmonic resonator for obtaining femtomolar detection levels of (SARS)-CoV-2 …”