Sequence-Specific Detection of Unlabeled Nucleic Acid Biomarkers Using a "One-Pot" 3D Molecular Sensor

Application of DNA Nanotweezers in biosensing: Nanoarchitectonics and advanced challenges

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a carrier of genetic information. DNA hybridization is characterized by predictability, diversity, and specificity owing to the strict complementary base-pairing assembly mode, which stimulates the use of DNA to build a variety of nanomachines, including DNA tweezers, motors, walkers, and robots. DNA nanomachines have become prevalent for signal amplification and transformation in the field of biosensing, providing a new method for constructing highly sensitive sensing analysis strategies. DNA tweezers have exhibited unique advantages in biosensing applications owing to their simple structures and fast responses. The two-state conformation of DNA tweezers, the open and closed states, enable them to open and close autonomously after stimulation, thus facilitating the quick detection of corresponding signal changes of different targets. This review discusses the recent progress in the application of DNA nanotweezers in the field of biosensing, and the trends in their development for application in the field of biosensing are summarized.

A review on recent advances in polymer and peptide hydrogels

In this review, we focus on the very recent developments on the use of the stimuli responsive properties of polymer hydrogels for targeted drug delivery, tissue engineering, and biosensing utilizing their different optoelectronic properties. Besides, the stimuli-responsive hydrogels, the conducting polymer hydrogels are discussed, with specific attention to the energy generation and storage behavior of the xerogel derived from the hydrogel. The electronic and ionic conducting gels have been discussed that have applications in various electronic devices, e.g., organic field effect transistors, soft robotics, ionic skins, and sensors. The properties of polymer hybrid gels containing carbon nanomaterials have been exemplified here giving attention to applications in supercapacitors, dye sensitized solar cells, photocurrent switching, etc. Recent trends in the properties and applications of some natural polymer gels to produce thermal and acoustic insulating materials, drug delivery vehicles, self-healing material, tissue engineering, etc., are discussed. Besides the polymer gels, peptide gels of different dipeptides, tripeptides, oligopeptides, polypeptides, cyclic peptides, etc., are discussed, giving attention mainly to biosensing, bioimaging, and drug delivery applications. The properties of peptide-based hybrid hydrogels with polymers, nanoparticles, nucleotides, fullerene, etc., are discussed, giving specific attention to drug delivery, cell culture, bio-sensing, and bioimaging properties. Thus, the present review delineates, in short, the preparation, properties, and applications of different polymer and peptide hydrogels prepared in the past few years.