Turning a kinase deoxyribozyme into a sensor

Highly sensitive and selective demethylase FTO detection using a DNAzyme-mediated CRISPR/Cas12a signal cascade amplification electrochemiluminescence biosensor with C-CN/PCNV heterojunction as emitter

Fat mass and obesity-associated protein (FTO) has gained attention as the first RNA N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification eraser due to its overexpression being associated with various cancers. In this study, an electrochemiluminescence (ECL) biosensor for the detection of demethylase FTO was developed based on DNAzyme-mediated CRISPR/Cas12a signal cascade amplification system and carboxylated carbon nitride nanosheets/phosphorus-doped nitrogen-vacancy modified carbon nitride nanosheets (C-CN/PCNV) heterojunction as the emitter. The biosensor was constructed by modifying the C-CN/PCNV heterojunction and a ferrocene-tagged probe (ssDNA-Fc) on a glassy carbon electrode. The presence of FTO removes the m6A modification on the catalytic core of DNAzyme, restoring its cleavage activity and generating activator DNA. This activator DNA further activates the trans-cleavage ability of Cas12a, leading to the cleavage of the ssDNA-Fc and the recovery of the ECL signal. The C-CN/PCNV heterojunction prevents electrode passivation and improves the electron-hole recombination, resulting in significantly enhanced ECL signal. The biosensor demonstrates high sensitivity with a low detection limit of 0.63 pM in the range from 1.0 pM to 100 nM. Furthermore, the biosensor was successfully applied to detect FTO in cancer cell lysate and screen FTO inhibitors, showing great potential in early clinical diagnosis and drug discovery.

One-Step Digital Droplet Auto-Catalytic Nucleic Acid Amplification with High-Throughput Fluorescence Imaging and Droplet Tracking Computation

Digital droplet technology has emerged as a powerful new tool for biomarker analysis. Temperature cycling, enzymes, and off-chip processes are, nevertheless, always required. Herein, we constructed a digital droplet auto-catalytic hairpin assembly (ddaCHA) microfluidic system to achieve digital quantification of single-molecule microRNA (miRNA). The designed continuous chip integrates droplet generation, incubation, and fluorescence imaging on the chip, avoiding the requirement for extra droplet re-collection and heating operations. Clearly, the digital readout was obtained by partitioning miRNA into many individual pL-sized small droplets in which the target molecule is either present ("positive") or absent ("negative"). Importantly, the suggested enzyme-free auto-catalytic hairpin assembly (aCHA) in droplets successfully mitigated the effects of the external environment and thermal cycling on droplets, and its reaction rate is significantly superior to that of traditional CHA. We got excellent sensitivity with a linear correlation from 1 pM to 10 nM and a detection limit of 0.34 pM in the fluorescence spectrum section, as well as high selectivity to other miRNAs. Furthermore, the minimum target concentration could be reduced to 10 fM based on the high-throughput tracking computation of fluorescent droplets with a self-developed Python script, and the fluorescence intensity distribution agreed well with the theoretical value, demonstrating that it is feasible to detect miRNA efficiently and accurately, which has great potential applications in clinical diagnostics and biochemical research.

Ultrasensitive Uracil-DNA Glycosylase Activity Assay and Its Inhibitor Screening Based on Primer Remodeling Jointly via Repair Enzyme and Polymerase

The development of isothermal nucleic acid amplification techniques has great significance for highly sensitive biosensing in modern biology and biomedicine. A facile and robust exponential rolling circle amplification (RCA) strategy is proposed based on primer-remodeling amplification jointly via a repair enzyme and polymerase, and uracil-DNA glycosylase (UDG) is selected as a model analyte. Two kinds of complexes, complex I and complex II, are preprepared by hybridizing a circular template (CT) with a uracil-containing hairpin probe and tetrahydrofuran abasic site mimic (AP site)-embedded fluorescence-quenched probe (AFP), respectively. The target UDG specifically binds to complex I, resulting in the generation of an AP site, followed by cleavage via endonuclease IV (Endo IV) and the successive trimming of unmatched 3' terminus via phi29 DNA polymerase, thus producing a useable primer-CT complex that actuates the primary RCA. Then, numerous complex II anneal with the first-generation RCA product (RP), generating a complex II-RP assembly containing AP sites within the DNA duplex. With the aid of Endo IV and phi29, AFP, as a pre-primer in complex II, is converted into a mature primer to initiate additional rounds of RCA. So, countless AFPs are cleaved, releasing remarkably strong fluorescent signals. The biosensor is demonstrated to enable rapid and accurate detection of the UDG activity with an improved detection limit as low as 4.7 × 10^-5 U·mL^-1. Moreover, this biosensor is successfully applied for UDG inhibitor screening and complicated biological samples analysis. Compared to the previous exponential RCA methods, our proposed strategy offers additional advantages, including excellent stability, optional design of CT, and simplified operating steps. Therefore, this proposed strategy may create a useful and practical platform for ultrasensitive detection of low levels of analytes in clinical diagnosis and fundamental biomedicine research.

Single-molecule study of the effects of temperature, pH, and RNA base on the stepwise enzyme kinetics of 10–23 deoxyribozyme

We investigated how the stepwise enzyme kinetics of 10–23 deoxyribozyme was affected by temperature, pH, and RNA residue of the substrate at the single-molecule level. A deoxyribozyme-substrate system was employed to temporally categorize a single-turnover reaction into four distinct steps: binding, cleavage, dissociation of one of the cleaved fragments, and dissociation of the other fragment. The dwell time of each step was measured as the temperature was varied from 26 to 34 °C, to which the transition state theory was applied to obtain the enthalpy and entropy of activation for individual steps. In addition, we found that only the cleavage step was significantly affected by pH, indicating that it involves deprotonation of a single proton. We also found that different RNA residues specifically affect the cleavage step and cause the dwell time to change by as much as 5 times.

We investigated how the stepwise enzyme kinetics of 10–23 deoxyribozyme was affected by temperature, pH, and RNA residue of the substrate at the single-molecule level.

Functional nucleic acid biosensors utilizing rolling circle amplification

Functional nucleic acids regulate rolling circle amplification to produce multiple detection outputs suitable for the development of point-of-care diagnostic devices.

Self-Assembly of Copper-DNAzyme Nanohybrids for Dual-Catalytic Tumor Therapy

Despite the great efforts of using DNAzyme for gene therapy, its clinical success is limited by the lack of simple delivery systems and limited anticancer efficacy. Here, we develop a simple approach for the synthesis of hybrid nanostructures that exclusively consist of DNAzyme and Cu²⁺ with ultra-high loading capacity. The Cu-DNAzyme nanohybrids allow to effectively co-deliver DNAzyme and Cu²⁺ into cancer cells for combinational catalytic therapy. The released Cu²⁺ can be reduced to Cu⁺ by glutathione and then catalyze endogenous H₂ O₂ to form cytotoxic hydroxyl radicals for chemodynamic therapy (CDT), while the 10-23 DNAzyme enables the catalytic cleavage of VEGFR2 mRNA and activates gene silencing for gene therapy. We demonstrate that the system can efficiently accumulate in the tumor and exhibit amplified cascade antitumor effects with negligible systemic toxicity. Our work paves an extremely simple way to integrate DNAzyme with CDT for the dual-catalytic tumor treatment.

A DNAzyme-based label-free fluorescent probe for guanosine-5'-triphosphate detection

Guanosine-5'-triphosphate (GTP) plays a key role in many important biological processes of cells. It is not only a primer for DNA replication and one of the four essential nucleoside triphosphates for mRNA synthesis, but also an energy source for translation and other important cellular processes. It can be converted to adenine nucleoside triphosphate (ATP), and the intracellular GTP level is closely related to the specific pathological state, so it is crucial to establish a simple and accurate method for the detection of GTP. Deoxyribozymes have unique catalytic and structural properties. One of the deoxyribozymes which is named DK2 with self-phosphorylation ability can transfer a phosphate from GTP to the 5' end in the presence of manganese(ii), while lambda exonuclease (λexo) catalyzes the gradual hydrolysis of double-stranded DNA molecules phosphorylated at the 5'-end from 5' to 3', but cannot cleave the 5'-OH end. The fluorescent dye SYBR Green I (SG I) can bind to dsDNA and produce significant fluorescence, but it can only give out weak fluorescence when it is mixed with a single strand. Here, we present a novel unlabeled fluorescence assay for GTP based on the self-phosphorylation of deoxyribozyme DK2 and the specific hydrolysis of λexo. Owing to the advantages of simple operation, high sensitivity, good specificity, low cost and without fluorophore (quenching group) labeling, this method has great potential in biological applications.

Orthogonal Demethylase-Activated Deoxyribozyme for Intracellular Imaging and Gene Regulation

The epigenetic modification of nucleic acids represents a versatile approach for achieving high-efficient control over gene expression and transcription and could dramatically expand their biosensing and therapeutic applications. Demethylase-involved removal of N6-methyladenine (m⁶A) represents one of the vital epigenetic reprogramming events, yet its direct intracellular evaluation and as-guided gene regulation are extremely rare. The endonuclease-mimicking deoxyribozyme (DNAzyme) is a catalytically active DNA that enables the site-specific cleavage of the RNA substrate, and several strategies have imparted the magnificent responsiveness to DNAzyme by using chemical and light stimuli. However, the epigenetic regulation of DNAzyme has remained largely unexplored, leaving a significant gap in responsive DNA nanotechnology. Herein, we reported an epigenetically responsive DNAzyme system through the in vitro selection of an exquisite m⁶A-caged DNAzyme that could be specifically activated by FTO (fat mass and obesity-associated protein) demethylation for precise intracellular imaging-directed gene regulation. Based on a systematic investigation, the active DNAzyme configuration was potently disrupted by the site-specific incorporation of m⁶A modification and subsequently restored into the intact DNAzyme structure via the tunable FTO-specific removal of m⁶A-caging groups under a variety of conditions. This orthogonal demethylase-activated DNAzyme amplifier enables the robust and accurate monitoring of FTO and its inhibitors in live cells. Moreover, the simple demethylase-activated DNAzyme facilitates the assembly of an intelligent self-adaptive gene regulation platform for knocking down demethylase with the ultimate apoptosis of tumor cells. As a straightforward and scarless m⁶A removal strategy, the demethylase-activated DNAzyme system offers a versatile toolbox for programmable gene regulation in synthetic biology.

Rolling circle amplification-driven encoding of different fluorescent molecules for simultaneous detection of multiple DNA repair enzymes at the single-molecule level

DNA repair enzymes (e.g., DNA glycosylases) play a critical role in the repair of DNA lesions, and their aberrant levels are associated with various diseases. Herein, we develop a sensitive method for simultaneous detection of multiple DNA repair enzymes based on the integration of single-molecule detection with rolling circle amplification (RCA)-driven encoding of different fluorescent molecules. We use human alkyladenine DNA glycosylase (hAAG) and uracil DNA glycosylase (UDG) as the target analytes. We design a bifunctional double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) substrate with a hypoxanthine base (I) in one strand for hAAG recognition and an uracil (U) base in the other strand for UDG recognition, whose cleavage by APE1 generates two corresponding primers. The resultant two primers can hybridize with their respective circular templates to initiate RCA, resulting in the incorporation of multiple Cy3-dCTP and Cy5-dGTP nucleotides into the amplified products. After magnetic separation and exonuclease cleavage, the Cy3 and Cy5 fluorescent molecules in the amplified products are released into the solution and subsequently quantified by total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF)-based single-molecule detection, with Cy3 indicating the presence of hAAG and Cy5 indicating the presence of UDG. This strategy greatly increases the number of fluorescent molecules per concatemer through the introduction of RCA-driven encoding of different fluorescent molecules, without the requirement of any specially labeled detection probes for simultaneous detection. Due to the high amplification efficiency of RCA and the high signal-to-ratio of single-molecule detection, this method can achieve a detection limit of 6.10 × 10-9 U mL-1 for hAAG and 1.54 × 10-9 U mL-1 for UDG. It can be further applied for simultaneous detection of multiple DNA glycosylases in cancer cells at the single-cell level and the screening of DNA glycosylase inhibitors, holding great potential in early clinical diagnosis and drug discovery.

Circular Nucleic Acids: Discovery, Functions and Applications

Circular nucleic acids (CNAs) are nucleic acid molecules with a closed-loop structure. This feature comes with a number of advantages including complete resistance to exonuclease degradation, much better thermodynamic stability, and the capability of being replicated by a DNA polymerase in a rolling circle manner. Circular functional nucleic acids, CNAs containing at least a ribozyme/DNAzyme or a DNA/RNA aptamer, not only inherit the advantages of CNAs but also offer some unique application opportunities, such as the design of topology-controlled or enabled molecular devices. This article will begin by summarizing the discovery, biogenesis, and applications of naturally occurring CNAs, followed by discussing the methods for constructing artificial CNAs. The exploitation of circular functional nucleic acids for applications in nanodevice engineering, biosensing, and drug delivery will be reviewed next. Finally, the efforts to couple functional nucleic acids with rolling circle amplification for ultra-sensitive biosensing and for synthesizing multivalent molecular scaffolds for unique applications in biosensing and drug delivery will be recapitulated.

Hydrazone chemistry assisted DNAzyme for the analysis of double targets

In this work, a hydrazone chemistry assisted DNAzyme has been designed and constructed. The introduction of hydrazone chemistry increases the versatility of DNAzymes. With superior catalytic capability, the hydrazone chemistry assisted DNAzyme has been successfully applied for the analysis of double targets. Taking 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) as samples, the hydrazone chemistry assisted DNAzyme can be used for the detection of different combinations of targets. Moreover, because hydrazone chemistry is popular in nature, this work may also provide a new insight for the development of DNAzymes and their multifunctionality.

A Paper Sensor Printed with Multifunctional Bio/Nano Materials

We report a paper-based aptasensor platform that uses two reaction zones and a connecting bridge along with printed multifunctional bio/nano materials to achieve molecular recognition and signal amplification. Upon addition of analyte to the first zone, a fluorescently labelled DNA or RNA aptamer is desorbed from printed graphene oxide, rapidly producing an initial fluorescence signal. The released aptamer then flows to the second zone where it reacts with printed reagents to initiate rolling circle amplification, generating DNA amplicons containing a peroxidase-mimicking DNAzyme, which produces a colorimetric readout that can be read in an equipment-free manner or with a smartphone. The sensor was demonstrated using an RNA aptamer for adenosine triphosphate (a bacterial marker) and a DNA aptamer for glutamate dehydrogenase (Clostridium difficile marker) with excellent sensitivity and specificity. These targets could be detected in spiked serum or feacal samples, demonstrating the potential for testing clinical samples.

MRI/Fluorescence bimodal amplification system for cellular GSH detection and tumor cell imaging based on manganese dioxide nanosheet

Here, we report a novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)/fluorescence bimodal amplification platform for the detection of glutathione (GSH) on the basis of redoxable manganese dioxide (MnO₂) nanosheets, which can be readily applied as a DNA nanocarrier, fluorescence quencher, and intracellular GSH-activated MRI contrast agent. The binding of aptamers that absorbed on the MnO₂ nanosheets to their target can facilitating the endocytosis of target-nanoprobes. Once endocytosed, the MnO₂ nanosheets can react with cellular GSH, resulting in the disintegration of nanosheets to generate plenty of Mn²⁺ ions for MRI and releases the primers which were adsorbed on the MnO₂ nanosheets. Then the rolling circle amplification (RCA) reaction was initiated to amplify the fluorescence signal. In addition, after treatment with GSH, the MnO₂ nanosheets were reduced and then most of the fluorescence was recovered. Therefore, this MnO₂ nanoprobe exhibits excellent selectivity, suggesting a potential detection platform for analyzing the glutathione level in cells.

Enzyme-Free Nucleic Acid Amplification Assay Using a Cellphone-Based Well Plate Fluorescence Reader

Nucleic acids, DNA and RNA, provide important fingerprint information for various pathogens and have significant diagnostic value; however, improved approaches are urgently needed to enable rapid detection of nucleic acids in simple point-of-care formats with high sensitivity and specificity. Here, we present a system that utilizes a series of toehold-triggered hybridization/displacement reactions that are designed to convert a given amount of RNA molecules (i.e., the analyte) into an amplified amount of signaling molecules without any washing steps or thermocycling. Fluorescent probes for signal generation were designed to consume products of the catalytic reaction in order to push the equilibrium and enhance the assay fold amplification for improved sensitivity and reaction speed. The system of toehold-assisted reactions is also modeled to better understand its performance and capabilities, and we empirically demonstrate the success of this approach with two analytes of diagnostic importance, i.e., influenza viral RNA and a micro RNA (miR-31). We also show that the amplified signal permits using a compact and cost-effective smartphone-based fluorescence reader, an important requirement toward a nucleic-acid-based point-of-care diagnostic system.

Target-triggered transcription machinery for ultra-selective and sensitive fluorescence detection of nucleoside triphosphates in one minute

Nucleoside triphosphates (NTPs) play important roles in living organisms. However, no fluorescent assays are currently available to simply and rapidly detect multiple NTPs with satisfactory selectivity, sensitivity and low cost. Here we demonstrate for the first time a target-triggered in-vitro transcription machinery for ultra-selective, sensitive and instant fluorescence detection of multiple NTPs. The machinery assembles RNA polymerase, DNA template and non-target NTPs to convert the target NTP into equivalent RNA signal sequences which are monitored by the fluorescence enhancement of molecular beacon. The machinery offers excellent selectivity for the target NTP against NDP, NMP and dNTP. Notably, to accelerate the kinetics of the machinery while maintain its high specificity, we investigated the sequence of DNA templates systematically and established a set of guidelines for the design of the optimum DNA templates, which allowed for instant detection of the target NTP at fmol level in less than 1min. Furthermore, the machinery could be transformed into logic gates to study the coeffects of two NTPs in biosynthesis and real-time monitoring systems to reflect the distribution of NTP in nucleotide pools. These results provide very useful and low-cost tools for both biochemical tests and point-of-care analysis.

Generation of long, fully modified, and serum-resistant oligonucleotides by rolling circle amplification

Rolling Circle Amplification (RCA) is an isothermal enzymatic method generating single-stranded DNA products consisting of concatemers containing multiple copies of the reverse complement of the circular template precursor. Little is known on the compatibility of modified nucleoside triphosphates (dN*TPs) with RCA, which would enable the synthesis of long, fully modified ssDNA sequences. Here, dNTPs modified at any position of the scaffold were shown to be compatible with rolling circle amplification, yielding long (>1 kb), and fully modified single-stranded DNA products. This methodology was applied for the generation of long, cytosine-rich synthetic mimics of telomeric DNA. The resulting modified oligonucleotides displayed an improved resistance to fetal bovine serum.

A supersandwich fluorescence in situ hybridization strategy for highly sensitive and selective mRNA imaging in tumor cells

This strategy uses two fluorophore-labeled signal probes to generate a supersandwich product, which in turn generates numerous signal probes located at the target mRNA position, resulting in thein situfluorescence signal amplification.

Isothermal Amplification of Nucleic Acids

Isothermal amplification of nucleic acids is a simple process that rapidly and efficiently accumulates nucleic acid sequences at constant temperature. Since the early 1990s, various isothermal amplification techniques have been developed as alternatives to polymerase chain reaction (PCR). These isothermal amplification methods have been used for biosensing targets such as DNA, RNA, cells, proteins, small molecules, and ions. The applications of these techniques for in situ or intracellular bioimaging and sequencing have been amply demonstrated. Amplicons produced by isothermal amplification methods have also been utilized to construct versatile nucleic acid nanomaterials for promising applications in biomedicine, bioimaging, and biosensing. The integration of isothermal amplification into microsystems or portable devices improves nucleic acid-based on-site assays and confers high sensitivity. Single-cell and single-molecule analyses have also been implemented based on integrated microfluidic systems. In this review, we provide a comprehensive overview of the isothermal amplification of nucleic acids encompassing work published in the past two decades. First, different isothermal amplification techniques are classified into three types based on reaction kinetics. Then, we summarize the applications of isothermal amplification in bioanalysis, diagnostics, nanotechnology, materials science, and device integration. Finally, several challenges and perspectives in the field are discussed.

A cascade reaction network mimicking the basic functional steps of adaptive immune response

Biological systems use complex ‘information-processing cores’ composed of molecular networks to coordinate their external environment and internal states. An example of this is the acquired, or adaptive, immune system (AIS), which is composed of both humoral and cell-mediated components. Here we report the step-by-step construction of a prototype mimic of the AIS that we call an adaptive immune response simulator (AIRS). DNA and enzymes are used as simple artificial analogues of the components of the AIS to create a system that responds to specific molecular stimuli in vitro. We show that this network of reactions can function in a manner that is superficially similar to the most basic responses of the vertebrate AIS, including reaction sequences that mimic both humoral and cellular responses. As such, AIRS provides guidelines for the design and engineering of artificial reaction networks and molecular devices.

A cascade reaction network has been created that can function in a manner that is superficially similar to the most basic steps of the vertebrate adaptive immune response. This reaction network uses DNA and enzymes as simple artificial analogues of the components of the acquired immune system.

DNA nanotechnology-enabled biosensors

Biosensors employ biological molecules to recognize the target and utilize output elements which can translate the biorecognition event into electrical, optical or mass-sensitive signals to determine the quantities of the target. DNA-based biosensors, as a sub-field to biosensor, utilize DNA strands with short oligonucleotides as probes for target recognition. Although DNA-based biosensors have offered a promising alternative for fast, simple and cheap detection of target molecules, there still exist key challenges including poor stability and reproducibility that hinder their competition with the current gold standard for DNA assays. By exploiting the self-recognition properties of DNA molecules, researchers have dedicated to make versatile DNA nanostructures in a highly rigid, controllable and functionalized manner, which offers unprecedented opportunities for developing DNA-based biosensors. In this review, we will briefly introduce the recent advances on design and fabrication of static and dynamic DNA nanostructures, and summarize their applications for fabrication and functionalization of DNA-based biosensors.

Biosensing by Tandem Reactions of Structure Switching, Nucleolytic Digestion, and DNA Amplification of a DNA Assembly

ϕ29 DNA polymerase (ϕ29DP) is able to carry out repetitive rounds of DNA synthesis using a circular DNA template by rolling circle amplification (RCA). It also has the ability to execute 3'-5' digestion of single-stranded but not double-stranded DNA. A biosensor engineering strategy is presented that takes advantage of these two properties of ϕ29DP coupled with structure-switching DNA aptamers. The design employs a DNA assembly made of a circular DNA template, a DNA aptamer, and a pre-primer. The DNA assembly is unable to undergo RCA in the absence of cognate target owing to the formation of duplex structures. The presence of the target, however, triggers a structure-switching event that causes nucleolytic conversion of the pre-primer by ϕ29DP into a mature primer to facilitate RCA. This method relays target detection by the aptamer to the production of massive DNA amplicons, giving rise to dramatically enhanced detection sensitivity.

Optimal DNA templates for rolling circle amplification revealed by in vitro selection

Rolling circle amplification (RCA) has been widely used as an isothermal DNA amplification technique for diagnostic and bioanalytical applications. Because RCA involves repeated copying of the same circular DNA template by a DNA polymerase thousands of times, we hypothesized there exist DNA sequences that can function as optimal templates and produce more DNA amplicons within an allocated time. Herein we describe an in vitro selection effort conducted to search from a random sequence DNA pool for such templates for phi29 DNA polymerase, a frequently used polymerase for RCA. Diverse DNA molecules were isolated and they were characterized by richness in adenosine (A) and cytidine (C) nucleotides. The top ranked sequences exhibit superior RCA efficiency and the use of these templates for RCA results in significantly improved detection sensitivity. AC-rich sequences are expected to find useful applications for setting up effective RCA assays for biological sensing.

Graphene-DNAzyme Junctions: A Platform for Direct Metal Ion Detection with Ultrahigh Sensitivity

Many metal ions are present in biology and in the human body in trace amounts. Despite numerous efforts, metal sensors with ultrahigh sensitivity (< a few picomolar) are rarely achieved. Here, we describe a platform method that integrates a Cu2+-dependent DNAzyme into graphene-molecule junctions and its application for direct detection of paramagnetic Cu2+ with femtomolar sensitivity and high selectivity. Since DNAzymes specific for other metal ions can be obtained through in vitro selection, the method demonstrated here can be applied to the detection of a broad range of other metal ions.

Applications of synchrotron-based spectroscopic techniques in studying nucleic acids and nucleic acid-functionalized nanomaterials

In this review, we summarize recent progress in the application of synchrotron-based spectroscopic techniques for nucleic acid research that takes advantage of high-flux and high-brilliance electromagnetic radiation from synchrotron sources. The first section of the review focuses on the characterization of the structure and folding processes of nucleic acids using different types of synchrotron-based spectroscopies, such as X-ray absorption spectroscopy, X-ray emission spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, synchrotron radiation circular dichroism, X-ray footprinting and small-angle X-ray scattering. In the second section, the characterization of nucleic acid-based nanostructures, nucleic acid-functionalized nanomaterials and nucleic acid-lipid interactions using these spectroscopic techniques is summarized. Insights gained from these studies are described and future directions of this field are also discussed.

Ultrasensitive detection of thrombin using surface plasmon resonance and quartz crystal microbalance sensors by aptamer-based rolling circle amplification and nanoparticle signal enhancement

The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) aptasensors combined with rolling circle amplification and bio-bar-coded AuNP enhancement have been applied to detect the human α-thrombin for the first time. The assay platform exhibited excellent selectivity and sensitivity with detection limit as low as 0.78 aM.

Self-phosphorylating deoxyribozyme initiated cascade enzymatic amplification for guanosine-5'-triphosphate detection

The self-phosphorylating deoxyribozymes identified by in vitro selection can catalyze their own phosphorylation by utilizing phosphate donor guanosine-5'-triphosphate (GTP) which plays a critical role in a majority of cellular processes. On the basis of the unique properties of self-phosphorylating deoxyribozymes, we report a novel GTP sensor coupled with λ exonuclease cleavage reaction and nicking enzyme assisted fluorescence signal amplification process. The deoxyribozymes with special catalytic and structural characteristics display good stability compared to protein and RNA enzymes. We combined these properties with enzymatic recycling cleavage strategy to build a sensor which produced enhanced fluorescence signal. Sensitive and selective detection of GTP was successfully realized with the well-designed deoxyribozyme-based sensing platform by taking advantage of the self-phosphorylating ability of the kinase deoxyribozyme, efficient digestion capacity of λ exonuclease, and enzymatic recycling amplification of nicking enzyme. The method not only provides a platform for detecting GTP but also shows great potential in analyzing a variety of targets by combining deoxyribozymes with signal amplification strategy.

A graphene-based biosensing platform based on the release of DNA probes and rolling circle amplification

We report a versatile biosensing platform capable of achieving ultrasensitive detection of both small-molecule and macromolecular targets. The system features three components: reduced graphene oxide for its ability to adsorb single-stranded DNA molecules nonspecifically, DNA aptamers for their ability to bind reduced graphene oxide but undergo target-induced conformational changes that facilitate their release from the reduced graphene oxide surface, and rolling circle amplification (RCA) for its ability to amplify a primer-template recognition event into repetitive sequence units that can be easily detected. The key to the design is the tagging of a short primer to an aptamer sequence, which results in a small DNA probe that allows for both effective probe adsorption onto the reduced graphene oxide surface to mask the primer domain in the absence of the target, as well as efficient probe release in the presence of the target to make the primer available for template binding and RCA. We also made an observation that the circular template, which on its own does not cause a detectable level of probe release from the reduced graphene oxide, augments target-induced probe release. The synergistic release of DNA probes is interpreted to be a contributing factor for the high detection sensitivity. The broad utility of the platform is illustrated though engineering three different sensors that are capable of achieving ultrasensitive detection of a protein target, a DNA sequence and a small-molecule analyte. We envision that the approach described herein will find useful applications in the biological, medical, and environmental fields.

Allosteric control of a DNA-hydrolyzing deoxyribozyme with short oligonucleotides and its application in DNA logic gates

Allosteric control of deoxyribozymes is useful for a broad range of practical applications, such as nucleic acid sensing and DNA-computing. We found that the catalytic activity of a DNA-hydrolyzing deoxyribozyme could be allosterically regulated by adding short oligonucleotides. We used this technique to construct deoxyribozyme-based logic gates.

Simple and efficient method to purify DNA-protein conjugates and its sensing applications

DNA-protein conjugates are very useful in analytical chemistry for target recognition and signal amplification. While a number of methods for conjugating DNA with proteins are known, methods for purification of DNA-protein conjugates from reaction mixture containing unreacted proteins are much less investigated. In this work, a simple and efficient approach to purify DNA-invertase conjugates from reaction mixture via a biotin displacement strategy to release desthiobiotinylated DNA-invertase conjugates from streptavidin-coated magnetic beads was developed. The conjugates purified by this approach were utilized for quantitative detection of cocaine and DNA using a personal glucose meter through structure-switching DNA aptamer sensors and competitive DNA hybridization assays, respectively. In both cases, the purified DNA-invertase conjugates showed better performance compared to the same assays using unpurified conjugates. The approach demonstrated here can be further expanded to other DNA and proteins to generate purified DNA-protein conjugates for analytical and other applications.

A highly sensitive target-primed rolling circle amplification (TPRCA) method for fluorescent in situ hybridization detection of microRNA in tumor cells

The ability to detect spatial and temporal microRNA (miRNA) distribution at the single-cell level is essential for understanding the biological roles of miRNAs and miRNA-associated gene regulatory networks. We report for the first time the development of a target-primed RCA (TPRCA) strategy for highly sensitive and selective in situ visualization of miRNA expression patterns at the single-cell level. This strategy uses a circular DNA as the probe for in situ hybridization (ISH) with the target miRNA molecules, and the free 3' terminus of miRNA then initiates an in situ RCA reaction to generate a long tandem repeated sequence with thousands of complementary segments. After hybridization with fluorescent detection probes, target miRNA molecules can be visualized with ultrahigh sensitivity. Because the RCA reaction can only be initiated by the free 3' end of target miRNA, the developed strategy offers the advantage over existing ISH methods in eliminating the interference from precursor miRNA or mRNA. This strategy is demonstrated to show high sensitivity and selectivity for the detection of miR-222 expression levels in human hepatoma SMMC-7721 cells and hepatocyte L02 cells. Moreover, the developed TPRCA-based ISH strategy is successfully applied to multiplexed detection using two-color fluorescent probes for two miRNAs that are differentially expressed in the two cell lines. The results reveal that the developed strategy may have great potential for in situ miRNA expression analysis for basic research and clinical diagnostics.

Noncanonical self-assembly of multifunctional DNA nanoflowers for biomedical applications

DNA nanotechnology has been extensively explored to assemble various functional nanostructures for versatile applications. Mediated by Watson-Crick base-pairing, these DNA nanostructures have been conventionally assembled through hybridization of many short DNA building blocks. Here we report the noncanonical self-assembly of multifunctional DNA nanostructures, termed as nanoflowers (NFs), and the versatile biomedical applications. These NFs were assembled from long DNA building blocks generated via rolling circle replication (RCR) of a designer template. NF assembly was driven by liquid crystallization and dense packaging of building blocks, without relying on Watson-Crick base-pairing between DNA strands, thereby avoiding the otherwise conventional complicated DNA sequence design. NF sizes were readily tunable in a wide range, by simply adjusting such parameters as assembly time and template sequences. NFs were exceptionally resistant to nuclease degradation, denaturation, or dissociation at extremely low concentration, presumably resulting from the dense DNA packaging in NFs. The exceptional biostability is critical for biomedical applications. By rational design, NFs can be readily incorporated with myriad functional moieties. All these properties make NFs promising for versatile applications. As a proof-of-principle demonstration, in this study, NFs were integrated with aptamers, bioimaging agents, and drug loading sites, and the resultant multifunctional NFs were demonstrated for selective cancer cell recognition, bioimaging, and targeted anticancer drug delivery.

DNA catalysts with tyrosine kinase activity

We show that DNA catalysts (deoxyribozymes, DNA enzymes) can phosphorylate tyrosine residues of peptides. Using in vitro selection, we identified deoxyribozymes that transfer the γ-phosphoryl group from a 5'-triphosphorylated donor (a pppRNA oligonucleotide or GTP) to the tyrosine hydroxyl acceptor of a tethered hexapeptide. Tyrosine kinase deoxyribozymes that use pppRNA were identified from each of N30, N40, and N50 random-sequence pools. Each deoxyribozyme requires Zn(2+), and most additionally require Mn(2+). The deoxyribozymes have little or no selectivity for the amino acid identities near the tyrosine, but they are highly selective for phosphorylating tyrosine rather than serine. Analogous GTP-dependent DNA catalysts were identified and found to have apparent Km(GTP) as low as ∼20 μM. These findings establish that DNA has the fundamental catalytic ability to phosphorylate the tyrosine side chain of a peptide substrate.