Label-free molecular beacon for real-time monitoring of DNA polymerase activity

Traditional methods for assaying DNA polymerase activity are discontinuous, time consuming, and laborious. Here, we report a new approach for label-free and real-time monitoring of DNA polymerase activity using a Thioflavin T (ThT) probe. In the presence of DNA polymerase, the DNA primer could be elongated through polymerase reaction to open MB1, leading to the release of the G-quartets. These then bind to ThT to form ThT/G-quadruplexes with an obvious fluorescence generation. It exhibits a satisfying detection result for the activity of DNA polymerase with a low detection limit of 0.05 unit/ml. In addition, no labeling with a fluorophore or a fluorophore-quencher pair is required; this method is fairly simple, fast, and low cost. Furthermore, the proposed method was also applied to assay the inhibition of DNA polymerase activity. This approach may offer potential applications in drug screening, clinical diagnostics, and some other related biomedical research.