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Engineering biosensors with extended, narrowed, or arbitrarily edited dynamic range.
Alexis Vallée-Bélisle1, Francesco Ricci, Kevin W Plaxco
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA.
Journal of the American Chemical Society
|January 14, 2012
Summary
Researchers engineered artificial biosensors to overcome limitations in detecting a wide range of target concentrations. By adapting natural strategies, they successfully extended and refined the dynamic range of these biosensors for broader applications.
Area of Science:
- Biotechnology
- Biosensor Engineering
- Molecular Recognition
Background:
- Biomolecular recognition is crucial for artificial sensing technologies.
- Current protein and nucleic acid biosensors have a limited dynamic range (81-fold) for target concentration.
- This limitation restricts sensitivity and quantification of wide-ranging concentrations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To adapt natural strategies for modulating biorecognition systems.
- To rationally edit the useful dynamic range of an artificial biosensor.
- To overcome the limitations of current biosensor dynamic ranges.
Main Methods:
- Engineered a structure-switching mechanism to tune receptor molecule affinity.
- Generated receptor variants with similar specificities but different target affinities.
- Combined signaling and nonsignaling receptor variants to modify biosensor response.
Main Results:
- Successfully extended the biosensor dynamic range to 900,000-fold.
- Narrowed the dynamic range to 5-fold and created a three-state sensor.
- Demonstrated rational editing of the normally 81-fold dynamic range.
Conclusions:
- Developed strategies to overcome inherent dynamic range limitations in biosensors.
- The engineered receptor variants allow for precise control over biosensor sensitivity and range.
- These strategies hold broad applicability for various biorecognition-dependent technologies.
