CRISPR-based test cuts African swine fever diagnosis time to minutes

Innovative CRISPR-Cas12a assay delivers rapid, accurate detection of African swine fever in under ten minutes, promising a game-changing tool for outbreak response in pig farms.

Researchers have reported a CRISPR-Cas12a test that could shorten diagnosis of African swine fever virus to minutes, offering a field-friendly alternative to laboratory PCR in outbreaks where speed matters. In work published in the Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation, the assay combined recombinase polymerase amplification with CRISPR detection and produced a visible result in as little as seven minutes, with fluorescence peaking at 40 minutes.

The authors said the method matched real-time PCR closely, correctly identifying ASFV in whole-blood samples from suspect and negative cases with 98.3% sensitivity at 102 DNA copies and 100% specificity. Related studies have pushed the same idea further: one sealed-tube version completed testing in 35 minutes and showed 100% agreement with quantitative PCR across 150 clinical samples, while another extraction-free design delivered ultraviolet or lateral-flow readouts with similarly high concordance.

The broader appeal is practical. African swine fever remains a major threat to pig production because it is highly contagious, often fatal in naïve herds and costly to control.

Reference: Gao, Xiaowei et al. “A one-pot CRISPR-Cas12a-based assay for rapid, on-site detection of African swine fever virus.” International journal of biological macromolecules vol. 321,Pt 2 (2025): 146109. doi:10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2025.146109