Bladder cancer (BC) occurrence and progression are accompanied
by alterations in microRNAs (miRNAs) expression levels. Simultaneous
detection of multiple miRNAs contributes to the accuracy and reliability
of the BC diagnosis. In this work, wrinkled silica nanoparticles (WSNs)
were applied as the microreactor for multiplex miRNAs analysis without
enzymes or nucleic acid amplification. Conjugated on the surface of
WSNs, the S9.6 antibody was adopted as the universal module for binding
DNA/miRNA duplexes, regardless of their sequence. Furthermore, single-stranded
DNA (ssDNA) was labeled with quantum dots (QDs) for identifying a
given miRNA to form QDs-ssDNA/miRNA, which enabled the specific capture
of the corresponding QDs on the wrinkled surface of WSNs. Based on
the detection of fluorescence signals that were ultimately focused
on WSNs, target miRNAs could be sensitively identified to a femtomolar
level (5 fM) with a wide dynamic range of up to 6 orders of magnitude.
The proposed strategy achieved high specificity to obviously distinguish
single-base mutation sequences and possessed multiplex assay capability.
Moreover, the assay exhibited excellent practicability in the multiplex
detection of miRNAs in clinical serum specimens.