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Updated: May 4, 2026
Rapid Nanoprobe Signal Enhancement by In Situ Gold Nanoparticle Synthesis
Published on: March 7, 2018
Visual detection of telomerase activity with a tunable dynamic range by using a gold nanoparticle probe-based
Jiasi Wang1, Li Wu, Jinsong Ren
1Laboratory of Chemical Biology, Division of Biological Inorganic Chemistry, State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resources Utilization and Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130022, P. R. China. xqu@ciac.ac.cn.
Abstract:
We developed a novel telomere complementary (TC) oligonucleotide modified AuNP probe (TC-AuNPs) for colorimetric analysis of telomerase activity. The mechanism of this method is that the telomerase reaction products (TRP), which can hybridize with the TC-AuNPs, are able to protect the AuNPs from the aggregation induced by salt. It is demonstrated that the colorimetric method enabled the analysis of the telomerase activity in 1000 HeLa cells with the naked eye, and down to 100 HeLa cells with the aid of UV-Vis spectroscopy. This strategy is not only convenient and sensitive, but also has a tunable dynamic range. The platform is also applicable for the initial screening of a telomerase inhibitor to discover new anticancer drugs.
