Developing fluorogenic RNA-cleaving DNAzymes for biosensing applications

Methods Mol Biol. 2012:848:395-418. doi: 10.1007/978-1-61779-545-9_25.

Abstract

Deoxyribozymes (or DNAzymes) are single-stranded DNA molecules that have the ability to catalyze a chemical reaction. Currently, DNAzymes have to be isolated from random-sequence DNA libraries by a process known as in vitro selection (IVS) because no naturally occurring DNAzyme has been discovered. Several IVS studies have led to the isolation of many RNA-cleaving DNAzymes (RNase DNAzymes), which catalyze the transesterification of a phosphodiester linkage in an RNA substrate, resulting in its cleavage. An RNase DNAzyme and its substrate can be modified with a pair of donor and acceptor fluorophores (or a fluorophore and quencher pair) to create a fluorescence-signaling system (a signaling DNAzyme) where the RNA-cleaving activity of the DNAzyme is reported through the generation of a fluorescent signal. A signaling DNAzyme can be further coupled with an aptamer (a target-binding nucleic acid sequence) to generate a fluorogenic aptazyme in which the aptamer-target interaction confers an allosteric control of the coupled RNA-cleaving and fluorescence-signaling activity of the DNAzyme. Fluorogenic aptazymes can be exploited as valuable molecular tools for biosensing applications. In this chapter, we provide both a detailed description of methods for isolation of signaling DNAzymes by IVS and general approaches for rational engineering of fluorogenic aptazymes for target detection.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Aptamers, Nucleotide / metabolism
  • Base Sequence
  • Biosensing Techniques / methods*
  • Cloning, Molecular
  • DNA, Catalytic / genetics
  • DNA, Catalytic / metabolism*
  • Fluorescent Dyes / metabolism*
  • Gene Library
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • RNA / metabolism*
  • Sequence Analysis

Substances

  • Aptamers, Nucleotide
  • DNA, Catalytic
  • Fluorescent Dyes
  • RNA