Self-assembly of DNA nanoparticles through multiple catalyzed hairpin assembly for enzyme-free nucleic acid amplified detection

Abstract

It is known that DNA molecules can be used to build a various of complicated geometrical DNA nanostructures with programmable sequence design, and these DNA nanomaterials show a promising application in biotechnology and biomedicine. However, the construction of large-sized three dimensional DNA-based nanomaterials still remains a challenge. In this work, we propose a new strategy that only employs one target DNA to trigger multiple catalyzed hairpin assembly (CHA) reactions and sticky ends self-assembly to prepare hundreds of nanometer-sized DNA nanoparticles. Moreover, the obtained DNA nanoparticles can be served as efficient biosensors for sensitive colorimetric nucleic acids detection with a detection limit of 7.7pM.

Keywords: Colorimetric detection; DNA nanoparticles; Multiple catalyzed hairpin assembly; Self-assembly.