Allosteric Probe Recognition Initiated Cascade Transcription Amplification for Sensitive Analysis of Exosomes

Sensitive and accurate analysis of exosomes is important for many biological processes including as a biomarker for cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) diagnosis and therapy. Herein, we established a sensitive and specific exosome detection approach based on target recognition initiated cascade signal amplification. In this method, an allosteric probe was designed with a hairpin structure for specific recognition of the exosome followed by signal amplification. After the cascade signal amplification process, spinach RNA sequences bind to DFHBI ((Z)-4-(3,5-difluoro-4-hydroxybenzylidene)-1,2-dimethyl-1H-imidazol-5(4H)-one) to produce enhanced fluorescence signal (approximate 2000 fold than that of inactive DFHBI). Compared with former proposed exosome detection techniques, this method exhibited a comparable detection range, but with an easy-to-design toolbox. Therefore, we believe that the proposed approach holds great potential for exosome based early diagnosis and prognosis of disease.