CRISPR-Based Biosensors: Mechanisms of Biomarker Recognition and Detection of Non-Nucleic Acid Targets

In fields such as the early diagnosis of diseases, food safety monitoring, and environmental pollutant screening, the requirements for the sensitivity, specificity, and efficiency of detection technologies are extremely stringent. Traditional detection techniques such as HPLC and ELISA are cumbersome, time-consuming, and costly, and cannot meet the needs of on-site rapid testing and trace target screening. Under this backdrop, the CRISPR-Cas system, with its high targeting specificity and programmability, has brought new directions to the development of biosensors, particularly promoting technological innovations in recognition mechanisms and signal amplification for the detection of non-nucleic acid targets. This study focuses on CRISPR-Cas system-based biosensors, analyzing their structural composition, comparing the detection approaches for nucleic acid and non-nucleic acid targets, and conducting a performance comparison with traditional technologies. Studies have shown that this sensor combines high sensitivity and specificity with low cost and rapid detection, is capable of detecting both nucleic acid and non-nucleic acid targets, and thus has broad application prospects. However, it still has some limitations, such as the complexity of the indirect recognition process and the constraints on signal amplification. The integration of signal amplification, AI, nanotechnology, and microfluidics in the future is expected to break through bottlenecks and achieve industrial applications.