Label free colorimetric and fluorimetric direct detection of methylated DNA based on silver nanoclusters for cancer early diagnosis

Detection of p53 Gene Mutation (Single-Base Mismatch) Using a Fluorescent Silver Nanoclusters

P53 mutation was detected through the application of a biosensing approach based on the decrease in the fluorescence of oligonucleotide-templated silver nanoclusters (DNA-AgNCs). To this end specific DNA scaffolds of two various nucleotide fragments were used. One of the scaffolds was enriched with two cytosine sequence fragment (C12). This led to DNA-AgNCs with a fluorescence intensity through chemical reduction, while the other scaffold acted as the probe fragment (5- GTAGATGGCCATGGCGCGGACGCGGGTG-3). This latter scaffold selectively bound to the specific p53 site. Thus, resulting AgNCs demonstrated decreased fluorescence upon binding to single-base mismatching targets, and this behavior was found to be linearly proportional to the concentration of mutated p53 from 5 to 350 nM and the approach was found to be able to detect concentrations as low as 1.3 nM.

Optical probes and sensors as perspective tools in epigenetics

Modifications of DNA cytosine bases and histone posttranslational modifications play key roles in the control of gene expression and specification of cell states. Such modifications affect many important biological processes and changes to these important regulation mechanisms can initiate or significantly contribute to the development of many serious pathological states. Therefore, recognition and determination of chromatin modifications is an important goal in basic and clinical research. Two of the most promising tools for this purpose are optical probes and sensors, especially colourimetric and fluorescence devices. The use of optical probes and sensors is simple, without highly expensive instrumentation, and with excellent sensitivity and specificity for target structural motifs. Accordingly, the application of various probes and sensors in the recognition and determination of cytosine modifications and structure of histones and histone posttranslational modifications, are discussed in detail in this review.

Label-Free Fluorescent Detection of Trypsin Activity Based on DNA-Stabilized Silver Nanocluster-Peptide Conjugates

Trypsin is important during the regulation of pancreatic exocrine function. The detection of trypsin activity is currently limited because of the need for the substrate to be labeled with a fluorescent tag. A label-free fluorescent method has been developed to monitor trypsin activity. The designed peptide probe consists of six arginine molecules and a cysteine terminus and can be conjugated to DNA-stabilized silver nanoclusters (DNA-AgNCs) by Ag-S bonding to enhance fluorescence. The peptide probe can also be adsorbed to the surface of graphene oxide (GO), thus resulting in the fluorescence quenching of DNA-AgNCs-peptide conjugate because of Förster resonance energy transfer. Once trypsin had degraded the peptide probe into amino acid residues, the DNA-AgNCs were released from the surface of GO, and the enhanced fluorescence of DNA-AgNCs was restored. Trypsin can be determined with a linear range of 0.0-50.0 ng/mL with a concentration as low as 1 ng/mL. This label-free method is simple and sensitive and has been successfully used for the determination of trypsin in serum. The method can also be modified to detect other proteases.

Microfluidic platforms for DNA methylation analysis

In the field of genetics, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression without any change in DNA sequences. Chemical base modification in DNA by DNA methyltransferase, and specifically methylation, has been well studied as the main mechanism of epigenetics. Therefore, the determination of DNA methylation of, for example, 5'-methylcytosine in the CpG sequence in mammals has attracted attention because it should prove valuable in a wide range of research fields including diagnosis, drug discovery, and therapy. Methylated DNA bases and DNA methyltransferase activity are analyzed using conventional methods; however, these methods are time-consuming and require complex multiple operations. Therefore, new methods and devices for DNA methylation analysis are now being actively developed. Furthermore, microfluidic technology has also been applied to DNA methylation analysis because the microfluidic platform offers the promising advantage of making it possible to perform thousands of DNA methylation reactions in small reaction volumes, resulting in a high-throughput analysis with high sensitivity. This review discusses epigenetics and the microfluidic platforms developed for DNA methylation analysis.

Spectroscopic Study of CpG Alternating DNA-Methylene Blue Interaction for Methylation Detection

Recognition of methylated DNA sites would be useful strategy due to the important roles of methylation in disease occurrence and developmental processes. The interaction of CpG rich methylated and unmethylated DNA hybrid with methylene blue (MB) as an optical probe has been investigated by absorption, emission, circular dichorism and fluorescence anisotropy analysis. Titration of MB with both sequences caused a hypsochromism and decreased the absorption of MB that indicating an intercalative mode of interaction. The experimental results revealed that MB as the optical indicator could distinguish between the methylated and unmethylated DNA sequences. Under optimum conditions, upon the addition of methylated dsDNA, the fluorescence intensity increased in linear range from 1.0 × 10(-9) to 1.0 × 10(-6) M with detection limit of 7.2 × 10(-10) M and on the other hand, the intensity of MB showed no change with addition of unmethylated dsDNA.

Rapid pre-symptomatic recognition of tristeza viral RNA by a novel fluorescent self-dimerized DNA–silver nanocluster probe

Citrus tristeza virus (CTV), a positive-strand RNA virus within the family of Closteroviridae, is distributed worldwide and causes one of the most economically important diseases of citrus.

DNA assembled metal nanoclusters: synthesis to novel applications

In this review, we have discussed the emergence of promising environmental-benign DNA assembled fluorescent metal nanoclusters and their unique electronic structures, unusual physical and chemical properties.