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Updated: Mar 26, 2026
MicroRNA Amplification and Recognition through Locked-nucleic-acid In situ Hybridization as a Novel Detection and Quantification Method
Published on: October 7, 2025
A novel polydopamine-based chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer method for microRNA detection coupling
Qian Wang1, Bin-Cheng Yin1, Bang-Ce Ye1
1Lab of Biosystem and Microanalysis, State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering, East China University of Science & Technology, Shanghai 200237, China.
Abstract:
MicroRNAs (miRNAs), functioning as oncogenes or tumor suppressors, play significant regulatory roles in regulating gene expression and become as biomarkers for disease diagnostics and therapeutics. In this work, we have coupled a polydopamine (PDA) nanosphere-assisted chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer (CRET) platform and a duplex-specific nuclease (DSN)-assisted signal amplification strategy to develop a novel method for specific miRNA detection. With the assistance of hemin, luminol, and H2O2, the horseradish peroxidase (HRP)-mimicking G-rich sequence in the sensing probe produces chemiluminescence, which is quickly quenched by the CRET effect between PDA as energy acceptor and excited luminol as energy donor. The target miRNA triggers DSN to partially degrade the sensing probe in the DNA-miRNA heteroduplex to repeatedly release G-quadruplex formed by G-rich sequence from PDA for the production of chemiluminescence. The method allows quantitative detection of target miRNA in the range of 80 pM-50 nM with a detection limit of 49.6 pM. The method also shows excellent specificity to discriminate single-base differences, and can accurately quantify miRNA in biological samples, with good agreement with the result from a commercial miRNA detection kit. The procedure requires no organic dyes or labels, and is a simple and cost-effective method for miRNA detection for early clinical diagnosis.
