Carrageenan from Gigartina skottsbergii: A Novel Molecular Probe to Detect SARS-CoV-2
Zank, Patricia Daiane
Universidade Federal de Pelotas
Cerveira, Milena Mattes
Universidade Federal de Pelotas
dos Santos, Victor Barboza
Universidade Federal de Pelotas
Klein, Vitor Pereira
Universidade Federal de Pelotas
de Souza, Thobias Toniolo
Universidade Federal de Pelotas
Bueno, Danielle Tapia
Universidade Federal de Pelotas
Poletti, Tais
Universidade Federal de Pelotas
Leitzke, Amanda Fonseca
Universidade Federal de Pelotas
Giongo, Janice Luehring
Universidade Federal de Pelotas
Carreno, Neftali Lenin Villarreal
Universidade Federal de Pelotas
de Pereira, Claudio Martin Pereira
Universidade Federal de Pelotas
Vaucher, Rodrigo de Almeida
Universidade Federal de Pelotas
Journal
Biosensors
ISSN
2079-6374
Open Access
gold
Volume
13
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented health and economic crisis, highlighting the importance of developing new molecular tools to monitor and detect SARS-CoV-2. Hence, this study proposed to employ the carrageenan extracted from Gigartina skottsbergii algae as a probe for SARS-CoV-2 virus binding capacity and potential use in molecular methods. G. skottsbergii specimens were collected in the Chilean subantarctic ecoregion, and the carrageenan was extracted -using a modified version of Webber's method-, characterized, and quantified. After 24 h of incubation with an inactivated viral suspension, the carrageenan's capacity to bind SARS-CoV-2 was tested. The probe-bound viral RNA was quantified using the reverse transcription and reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) methods. Our findings showed that carrageenan extraction from seaweed has a similar spectrum to commercial carrageenan, achieving an excellent proportion of binding to SARS-CoV-2, with a yield of 8.3%. Viral RNA was also detected in the RT-LAMP assay. This study shows, for the first time, the binding capacity of carrageenan extracted from G. skottsbergii, which proved to be a low-cost and highly efficient method of binding to SARS-CoV-2 viral particles.