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Abstract: Weak ligand–receptor recognition events are often amplified by recruiting multiple regulatory biomolecules to the action site in biological systems. However, signal amplification in in vitro biomimetic systems generally lack the spatiotemporal regulation in vivo. Herein we report a framework nucleic acid (FNA)‐programmed strategy to develop valence‐controlled signal amplifiers with high modularity for ultrasensitive biosensing. We demonstrated that the FNA‐programmed signal amplifiers could recruit nucleic acids, proteins, and inorganic nanoparticles in a stoichiometric manner. The valence‐controlled signal amplifier enhanced the quantification ability of electrochemical biosensors, and enabled ultrasensitive detection of tumor‐relevant circulating free DNA (cfDNA) with sensitivity enhancement of 3–5 orders of magnitude and improved dynamic range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The detection of biomarkers using sensitive and selective analytical devices is critically important for the early stage diagnosis and treatment of diseases. The synergy between the high specificity of nucleic acid recognition units and the great sensitivity of electrochemical signal transductions has already shown promise for the development of efficient biosensing platforms. Yet nucleic-acid based electrochemical biosensors often rely on target amplification strategies (e.g., polymerase chain reactions) to detect analytes at clinically relevant concentration ranges. The complexity and time-consuming nature of these amplification methods impede moving nucleic acid-based electrochemical biosensors from laboratory-based to point-of-care test settings. Fortunately, advancements in nanotechnology have provided growing evidence that the recruitment of nanoscaled materials and structures can enhance the biosensing performance (particularly in terms of sensitivity and response time) to the level suitable for use in point-of-care diagnostic tools. This Review highlights the significant progress in the field of nucleic acid-based electrochemical nanobiosensing with the focus on the works published during the last five years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have developed a fast, highly sensitive and low-cost biosensing system for the detection of clenbuterol (CLB), using a homemade mobile electrochemical device with an electric field-driven acceleration strategy. This system consists of an embedded circuit in smartphone for signal processing and a screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) modified with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) and goat anti mouse-immunoglobulin G (IgG) sensing layer (MWNTs-I-layer). CLB monoclonal antibody was assembled through its binding to the surface-confined antibody. Such modified electrodes were used for rapid and sensitive amperometric immunosensing detection of CLB. Horseradish peroxidase-coupled CLB (CLB–HRP) competed with free CLB in the samples to bind the monoclonal antibody. By using this mobile system, we could detect CLB ranging from 0.3 ng ⋅ mL − 1 to 100 ng ⋅ mL − 1 with the detection limit of 0.076 ng ⋅ mL − 1 . The whole competitive-type detection process was finished within 6 min. We expect this device can meet the requirements for field detection of various food security-related species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrochemical DNA (E-DNA) sensor is an important tool for detecting DNA biomarker. In this work, we have demonstrated a novel strategy of E-DNA sensor based on DNA tetrahedral nanostructures for the sensitive detection of target DNA. In our design, thiol and biotin modified DNA tetrahedral nanostructures were used as capture and report probes respectively. The biotin-tagged three dimensional DNA tetrahedral nanostructures were employed for efficient signal amplification by capturing multiple catalytic enzymes. Such improved E-DNA sensor can sensitively detect DNA target as low as 1 fM with excellent differentiation ability for even single mismatch. And a mean recovery rate of 90.57% in DNA solution extracted from human serum was obtained. We have also compared this new method of attaching catalytic enzymes with the other two typical methods: One is through biotinylated single-stranded DNA (SSDNA) and the other is through gold nanoparticles (GNPs). Results indicated that the RTSPs-based enzyme amplification system showed much better performance than the other two systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of sensitive telomerase biosensors is hindered by the restricted accessibility of telomere strand (TS) primer and the limited enzyme reaction space, which is mainly confined by the vertical distance. In this work, we designed an electrochemical telomerase biosensor based on a spired DNA tetrahedron TS primer (STTS). By adding a rigid dsDNA spire onto the top of the DNA tetrahedron, we successfully regulated the distance between the TS primer and the surface, and thus greatly facilitated the telomerase elongation on surface. The signal-to-noise ratio was 2 times higher than TSP without the spire structure. The limit of detection was calculated to be lower than 10 HeLa cells, which is at least 2 magnitudes lower than other surface extension-based electrochemical telomerase sensors without amplification. The practicability of STTS sensor was also demonstrated by analysing various other cell lines including cancer cells, stem cells of high telomerase activity and somatic cells of low telomerase activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]