A carbon nanoparticle and DNase I-Assisted amplified fluorescent biosensor for miRNA analysis

Nucleic acid-based biosensors have become powerful tools in biomedical applications. But the stability issue seriously limits their wide applications. Fortunately, the emergence of carbon nanoparticles (CNPs), which can effectively protect DNA probes from enzymatic digestion and unspecific protein binding, provides a good solution. In this work, a DNase I-aided cyclic enzymatic amplification method (CEAM) for microRNA analysis has been developed based on the coupling use of nucleic acid probes with specific molecular recognition ability as well as CNPs with excellent biostability. The method is simple and sensitive, with a detection limit down to 3.2 pM. Furthermore, satisfactory results are achieved for miRNA analysis in breast cancer cell lysate, demonstrating the applicability in disease diagnosis. The ingenious combination of CNPs and nucleic acid probes can open a new chapter in the development of versatile analytical strategies that holds great potentials for clinical diagnosis, food safety, and environmental monitoring.