Rapid development and field evaluation of a portable CRISPR-based assay for Mpox during the 2025 Sierra Leone outbreak.

Nature communications
Authors
Abstract

The large 2025 Mpox clade IIb outbreak in Sierra Leone underscores the urgent need for portable, low-cost diagnostics in decentralized settings. While CRISPR-based assays offer high sensitivity and flexibility, their deployment during active outbreaks remains limited. Here we show the rapid development and field evaluation of Mpox SHINE, a CRISPR-Cas13 assay that integrates lyophilized reagents, ambient-temperature lysis, and automated fluorescence detection on the portable DxHub device. The assay achieves analytical sensitivity down to 10 copies/µL. Clinical validation in Sierra Leone, using 56 clinical specimens, confirms complete concordance with qPCR, demonstrating 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity. Crucially, Mpox SHINE also detects the virus directly from unextracted lesion swabs while maintaining 100% sensitivity and specificity. The mean time-to-result is fast, averaging 11.4 minutes for extracted samples and 27.9 minutes for unextracted samples. These findings demonstrate that CRISPR-based diagnostics translate quickly from genomic sequence to clinically validated, deployable tools within a single outbreak window.

Year of Publication
2026
Journal
Nature communications
Date Published
06/2026
ISSN
2041-1723
DOI
10.1038/s41467-026-74034-8
PubMed ID
42251067
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