Polymerase-amplified release of ATP (POLARA) for detecting single nucleotide variants in RNA and DNA

Porous Fe3O4@COF-Immobilized gold nanoparticles with excellent catalytic performance for sensitive electrochemical detection of ATP

In this work, a "signal-off" electrochemical biosensor was established for sensitive detection of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) based on Fe₃O₄@covalent organic framework-immobilized gold nanoparticles (Fe₃O₄@COF-Au NPs) porous composite material as a nanocarrier. The proposed Fe₃O₄@COF-Au NPs could effectively confine Au NPs in the uniform channels of the Fe₃O₄@COF, which successfully avoided Au NPs aggregation to a certain extent and provided a comparatively independent and stable micro-environment via its hydrophobic porous nanochannels, thereby owning excellent electro-catalytic performance for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol. Moreover, the Fe₃O₄@COF-Au NPs nanomaterials were served as functional platform for immobilizing DNA substrate (S0), which was used to bind with the conversion product (S1) of the target ATP for subsequent branched hybridization chain reaction (b-HCR) to form dendritic DNA strands to hinder electron transfer between Fe₃O₄@COF-Au NPs and 4-nitrophenol, finally achieving sensitive detection of ATP with a wide linear range of 5 pM-50 μM and a low detection limit of 1.6 pM. Such strategy provides a multifunctional immobilized platform for the sensitive detection of ATP and a versatile strategy for monitoring other biomolecules.

Development of a Single Quantum Dot-Mediated FRET Nanosensor for Sensitive Detection of Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism in Cancer Cells

Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are important hallmarks of human diseases. Herein, we develop a single quantum dot (QD)-mediated fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) nanosensor with the integration of multiple primer generation rolling circle amplification (MPG-RCA) for sensitive detection of SNPs in cancer cells. This assay involves only a linear padlock probe for MPG-RCA. The presence of a mutant target facilitates the circularization of linear padlock probes to initiate RCA, producing three short single-stranded DNAs (ssDNAs) with the assistance of nicking endonuclease. The resulting ssDNAs can function as primers to induce cyclic MPG-RCA, resulting in the exponential amplification and generation of large numbers of linker probes. The linker probes can subsequently hybridize with the Cy5-labeled reporter probes and the biotinylated capture probes to obtain the sandwich hybrids. The assembly of these sandwich hybrids on the 605 nm-emission quantum dot (605QD) generates the 605QD-oligonucleotide-Cy5 nanostructures, resulting in efficient FRET from the 605QD to Cy5. This nanosensor is free from both the complicated probe design and the exogenous primers and has distinct advantages of high amplification efficiency, zero background signal, good specificity, and high sensitivity. It can detect SNPs with a large dynamic range of 8 orders of magnitude and a detection limit of 5.41 × 10^-20 M. Moreover, this nanosensor can accurately distinguish as low as 0.001% mutation level from the mixtures, which cannot be achieved by previously reported methods. Furthermore, it can discriminate cancer cells from normal cells and even quantify SNP at the single-cell level.

Ultra-specific genotyping of single nucleotide variants by ligase-based loop-mediated isothermal amplification coupled with a modified ligation probe

Specific and accurate detection of single nucleotide variants (SNVs) plays significant roles in pathogenic gene research and clinical applications. However, the sensitive but ultra-specific detection of rare variants in biological samples still remains challenging. Herein, we report a novel, robust and practical SNV assay by integrating the outstanding features of high selectivity of an artificial mismatched probe, and the powerful loop-mediated isothermal amplification. In this strategy, we rationally introduce artificial mismatched bases into the 3′-terminal regions of the probe located in the ligation region to reduce the risk of nonspecific ligation, which can dramatically improve the specificity for the SNV assay. The proposed method can discern as little as 0.01% mutant DNA in the high background of wild-type DNA with high sensitivity (10 aM). In virtue of its outstanding performance, the artificial mismatched probe may also be employed and expanded in various DNA and RNA genetic analyses with ligase-assisted approaches, showing great potential in biomedical research, clinical diagnostics, and bioanalysis.

An artificial mismatched base introduced in a ligation probe can effectively reduce nonspecific ligation and improve the specificity for SNV assay.

Enhanced SNP-sensing using DNA-templated reactions through confined hybridization of minimal substrates (CHOMS)

DNA or RNA templated reactions are attractive for nucleic acid sensing and imaging. As for any hybridization-based sensing, there is a tradeoff between sensitivity (detection threshold) and resolution (single nucleotide discrimination). Longer probes afford better sensitivity but compromise single nucleotide resolution due to the small thermodynamic penalty of a single mismatch. Herein we report a design that overcomes this tradeoff. The reaction is leveraged on the hybridization of a minimal substrate (covering 4 nucleotides) which is confined by two guide DNAs functionalized respectively with a ruthenium photocatalyst. The use of a catalytic reaction is essential to bypass the exchange of guide DNAs while achieving signal amplification through substrate turnover. The guide DNAs restrain the reaction to a unique site and enhance the hybridization of short substrates by providing two π-stacking interactions. The reaction was shown to enable the detection of SNPs and SNVs down to 50 pM with a discrimination factor ranging from 24 to 309 (median 82, 27 examples from 3 oncogenes). The clinical diagnostic potential of the technology was demonstrated with the analysis of RAS amplicons obtained directly from cell culture.

Quantification of cyclic DNA polymerization with lanthanide coordination nanomaterials for liquid biopsy

Quantification of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is of great importance in liquid biopsy but difficult due to its low amount in bodily fluids. To meet this high demand, a novel method for ctDNA detection is established by quantifying cyclic DNA polymerization using lanthanide coordination polymers (Ln-CPs). Relying on the coordination between the pyrophosphate ion (PPi) and trivalent cerium ion (Ce3+), organic ligand-free PPi-Ce coordination polymer networks (PPi-Ce CPNs) with enhanced fluorescence are prepared for the first time. By surveying the optical properties of PPi-Ce CPNs, it is found that PPi regulates electric-dipole transition of Ce3+ to the lowest excited state, thus facilitating the emission of fluorescence. Therefore, fluorescence enhancement of PPi-Ce CPNs originates from the ligand field effect rather than the normal antenna effect. Moreover, a new strategy to quantify DNA polymerization is developed based on PPi-Ce CPNs. By introducing multifold cyclic DNA polymerization, a small amount of ctDNA triggers the exponential generation of PPi to form plenty of PPi-Ce CPNs. Accordingly, a biosensor is constructed for sensitive ctDNA detection by measuring the intense fluorescence of PPi-Ce CPNs. The biosensor is capable of sensing ctDNA at the sub-femtomolar level, which is far better than the analytical performances of commercial dyes. Besides, the analytical method is able to detect single nucleotide polymorphism and determine ctDNA in real samples. Considering that DNA polymerization is widely used in bio-recognition, bio-assembly and biomineralization, the work provides a versatile quantitative strategy of making relevant processes precise and controllable.

Polymerase synthesis of four-base DNA from two stable dimeric nucleotides

We document the preparation and properties of dimerized pentaphosphate-bridged deoxynucleotides (dicaptides) that contain reactive components of two different nucleotides simultaneously. Importantly, dicaptides are found to be considerably more stable to hydrolysis than standard dNTPs. Steady-state kinetics studies show that the dimers exhibit reasonably good efficiency with the Klenow fragment of DNA polymerase I, and we identify thermostable enzymes that process them efficiently at high temperature. Experiments show that the dAp₅dT dimer successfully acts as a combination of dATP and dTTP in primer extension reactions, and the dGp₅dC dimer as a combination of dGTP and dCTP. The two dimers in combination promote successful 4-base primer extension. The final byproduct of the reaction, triphosphate, is shown to be less inhibitory to primer extension than pyrophosphate, the canonical byproduct. Finally, we document PCR amplification of DNA with two dimeric nucleotides, and show that the dimers can promote amplification under extended conditions when PCR with normal dNTPs fails. These dimeric nucleotides represent a novel and simple approach for increasing stability of nucleotides and avoiding inhibition from pyrophosphate.

Locus-patterned sequence oriented enrichment for multi-dimensional gene analysis

Multi-dimensional gene analysis provides in-depth insights into gene sequence, locus variations and molecular abundance, whereas it is vulnerable to the perturbation of complex reaction networks and always compromises on the discrimination of analogous sequences. Here, we present a sequence oriented enrichment method patterned by the prescribed locus without crosstalk between concurrent reactions. Energetically favourable structures of nucleic acid probes are theoretically derived and oriented to a specific gene locus. We designed a pair of universal probes for multiple conserved loci to avoid side reactions from undesired interactions among increased probe sets. Furthermore, competitive probes were customized to sink analogues for differentiating the reaction equilibrium and kinetics of sequence enrichment from the target, so variant loci can be synchronously identified with nucleotide-level resolution. Thus, the gene locus guides sequence enrichment and combinatorial signals to create unique codes, which provides access to multidimensional and precise information for gene decoding.