With the emergence of microRNA (miRNA) as a promising biomarker in cancer diagnosis, it is significant to develop multiple analyses of miRNAs. However, it still faces difficulties in ensuring the sensitivity and accuracy during multiplex detection owing to the low abundance and experimental deviation of miRNAs. In this work, a flexible-arranged biomimetic array integrated with parallel entropy-driven circuits (EDCs) was developed for ultrasensitive, multiplex, reliable, and high-throughput detection of miRNAs. The biomimetic array was fabricated by arrangement of various photonic crystals (PCs) for adjustable photonic band gaps (PBGs) and specific fluorescence enhancement. Meanwhile, two cancer-related miRNAs and one reference miRNA were introduced as multiple analytes as a proof-of-concept. The parallel EDCs with negligible crosstalk were designed based on the modular property. Because of the one-to-one match between the emitted fluorescence of parallel EDCs and the PBGs of the flexible-arranged biomimetic array, the generated fluorescence signal triggered by target miRNAs can be enhanced on the corresponding domain of the array. Furthermore, the amplified signal of the array was detected with high-throughput scanning, which could reveal specific information on cancer-related miRNAs as well as reference miRNA, enhancing the abundance and reliability of the analysis. The proposed array has the merits of a modular design, flexible deployment, simple operation (nonenzymatic and isothermal), improved accuracy, high sensitivity, and multiplex analysis, showing potential in disease diagnosis.
Keywords: biomimetic array; entropy-driven circuit; internal correction; multiplex detection; photonic crystals.