Iodide-modified Ag nanoparticles coupled with DSN-Assisted cycling amplification for label-free and ultrasensitive SERS detection of MicroRNA-21

Yuanyuan Yao; Hongding Zhang; Tongtong Tian; Yixin Liu; Rendan Zhu; Ji Ji; Baohong Liu

doi:10.1016/j.talanta.2021.122728

Iodide-modified Ag nanoparticles coupled with DSN-Assisted cycling amplification for label-free and ultrasensitive SERS detection of MicroRNA-21

Talanta. 2021 Dec 1:235:122728. doi: 10.1016/j.talanta.2021.122728. Epub 2021 Jul 22.

Authors

Yuanyuan Yao¹, Hongding Zhang², Tongtong Tian², Yixin Liu², Rendan Zhu³, Ji Ji⁴, Baohong Liu⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Shanghai Stomatological Hospital, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, State Key Lab of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China; Jiaxing Key Laboratory of Molecular Recognition and Sensing, College of Biological, Chemical Science and Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing, Zhejiang, 314001, China.
² Department of Chemistry, Shanghai Stomatological Hospital, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, State Key Lab of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China.
³ Jiaxing Key Laboratory of Molecular Recognition and Sensing, College of Biological, Chemical Science and Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing, Zhejiang, 314001, China.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Shanghai Stomatological Hospital, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, State Key Lab of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China. Electronic address: jiji@fudan.edu.cn.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, Shanghai Stomatological Hospital, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, State Key Lab of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China. Electronic address: bhliu@fudan.edu.cn.

PMID: 34517596
DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2021.122728

Abstract

With the emergence of microRNA (miRNA) as a key player in early clinical disease diagnosis, development of rapidly sensitive and quantitative miRNA detection methods are imperative. Herein, a label-free SERS assay coupled with duplex-specific nuclease (DSN) signal amplification strategy was proposed for facilely ultrasensitive and quantitative analysis of miRNA-21. Firstly, magnetic beads assembled with excessive capture DNA were utilized to hybridize the target miRNA-21. These DNA-RNA heteroduplexes were cleaved by DSN to generate small nucleotide fragments into the supernatant and the miRNA-21 released and rehybridized another DNA, going to the next DSN cycle. Consequently, numerous of small nucleotide fragments of capture DNA were released from magnetic beads and the miRNA-21 signal was transferred and amplified by the SERS signals of total phosphate backbones which are abundant in nucleotide. Furthermore, iodide-modified Ag nanoparticles (AgINPs) was employed to generate a strong and reproducible SERS signal. The proposed method displayed excellent performance for miRNA-21 detection with the linear range from 0.33 fM to 3.3 pM, and a lower detection limit of 42 aM. Moreover, this strategy exhibited effectively base discrimination capability and was successfully applied for monitoring the expression levels of miRNA-21 in different cancer cell lines and human serum.

Keywords: Duplex-specific nuclease signal amplification; Iodide-modified Ag nanoparticles; MicroRNA detection; SERS.

MeSH terms

Biosensing Techniques*
Gold
Humans
Iodides
Limit of Detection
Metal Nanoparticles*
MicroRNAs* / genetics
Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques
Silver

Substances

Iodides
MIRN21 microRNA, human
MicroRNAs
Silver
Gold