Fluorescence anisotropy reduction of allosteric aptamer for sensitive and specific protein signaling

Real time protein signaling in a complex medium may provide a promising way for high-throughput protein analysis, but it is largely unmet due to the challenge of signal transduction and the interferences of nonspecific binding and high background. Our recent work indicates that a fluorescent aptamer can display a protein binding-induced reduction of fluorescence anisotropy (FA) (Zhang, D.; Lu, M.; Wang, H. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2011, 133, 9188-9191), which is exclusively different from a traditionally simplified concept hinting a molecular size increase-induced FA increase. Inspired by this unexpected observation, we describe a novel FA reduction approach for protein signaling. The feasibility of this approach is demonstrated through the assays of a blood protein human α-thrombin and an oncoprotein human platelet-derived growth factor B-chain (PDGF-BB) using two screened fluorescent aptamers, respectively. By the developed FA reduction method, the spiked human α-thrombin in diluted serum can be detected at the concentration as low as 250 pM. In contrast, in a traditional molecular size-dependent FA assay, the thrombin spiked in diluted serum cannot induce reliable FA change even at a 256-fold higher concentration (64 nM). The results clearly show that the FA reduction approach has a dramatically enhanced specificity against target protein and high sensitivity in complex medium and is applicable to the no-separation based detection of proteins in biological matrixes.