Potential of gold nanoparticles in nucleic acid amplification: from amplification enhancement to product detection

Nucleic acid-based detection has been considered one of the most useful tools for diagnosis for several decades, owing to its ability to amplify signals and precisely recognize targets. With increasing demand to rapidly acquire the answer, diagnose early for a better prognosis, detect rare cells, and gain accurate answers, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have received growing attention as an excellent additive to fulfill these requirements. Based on a great deal of research, it became clear that AuNPs present an astonishing capacity to boost nucleic acid-based detection performance by exploiting their unique optical, structural, electrical, and thermal properties. In this review, we introduce various methods to synthesize AuNPs, including green synthesis, and broadly cover AuNPs' applications in different aspects, mainly for photothermal heating, enhancing amplification performance, and detection. The significance and basic mechanisms of each category were described using relevant recent articles to guide the planning of an efficient nucleic acid detection strategy for broad users.