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Updated: Sep 27, 2025

Fabrication of Electrochemical-DNA Biosensors for the Reagentless Detection of Nucleic Acids, Proteins and Small Molecules
Published on: June 1, 2011
An Allosteric Transcription Factor DNA-Binding Electrochemical Biosensor for Progesterone
Karthika Sankar1, R Baer2, Chloé Grazon3,4,5,6
1Division of Materials Science and Engineering, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States.
Abstract:
We describe an electrochemical strategy to transduce allosteric transcription factor (aTF) binding affinity to sense steroid hormones. Our approach utilizes square wave voltammetry to monitor changes in current output as a progesterone (PRG)-specific aTF (SRTF1) unbinds from the cognate DNA sequence in the presence of PRG. The sensor detects PRG in artificial urine samples with sufficient sensitivity suitable for clinical applications. Our results highlight the capability of using aTFs as the biorecognition elements to develop electrochemical point-of-care biosensors for the detection of small-molecule biomarkers and analytes.
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