Bodily fluid target enrichment

Abstract

The invention provides methods for capturing target nucleic acid directly from bodily fluid samples, without the need for certain complex sample preparation steps, using Cas endonuclease to bind to the target nucleic acid sequences. The Cas proteins, along with their sequence-specific guide RNAs, may be introduced directly into the sample, where the Cas proteins bind to ends of a target nucleic acid. The target nucleic acid is thus isolated or enriched in a sequence-specific manner. The target nucleic acid may then be subject to any suitable detection or analysis assay, such as amplification or sequencing. The target nucleic acid may be enriched by digesting other, unbound nucleic acids present in the sample with exonuclease. The bound Cas proteins prevent exonuclease from digesting the target nucleic acid, thereby leaving the only the target nucleic acid substantially present in the sample.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.