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Updated: Jul 25, 2026
Fabrication of Electrochemical-DNA Biosensors for the Reagentless Detection of Nucleic Acids, Proteins and Small Molecules
Published on: June 1, 2011
Branched DNA-Based Electrochemical Biosensor for Sensitive Nucleic Acids Analysis with Gold Nanoparticles as
Zhikun Zhang1, Chunyan Shang1, Cuixia Hu1
1School of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Hebei University of Science and Technology, Shijiazhuang 050018, China.
Abstract:
A branched DNA-based electrochemical biosensor was designed to sensitively detect specific nucleic acids. On this platform, novel a branched DNA with three sticky ends could be used as a biosensor to sensitively and specifically detect nucleic acids. Meanwhile, we also employed branched DNA-modified AuNPs as a signal amplifier to further improve the sensitivity. Branched DNA sensors, target DNA, and DNA-modified AuNPs formed a sandwich structure to produce an electronic signal for target DNA detection. The reaction primarily involved DNA hybridization without bulky thermal cyclers and enzymes. We proved that the hybridization reaction easily occurred under different conditions, such as the NaCl concentration, reaction time, pH, and temperature, except for a pH lower than 4. The limit of detection could go as low as 0.09 pM (S/N = 3) with excellent specificity and selectivity. There was a correlation curve relationship between the peak current and the logarithm of the target DNA concentration (0.10 pM to 10 nM). The correlation coefficient reached 0.987. The electrochemical platform enables a branched DNA nanostructure to determine nucleic acids for disease diagnosis.
