posted on 2024-02-23, 18:04authored byKun Zhang, Yan Li, Shengjie Jiang, Shang Ju
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have significant regulatory functions
in the
modulation of gene expression, making them essential biomarkers for
the diagnosis and prognosis of diseases. Nevertheless, the identification
of miRNA poses significant difficulty in terms of its low abundance,
necessitating sensitive and reliable approaches. Herein, we develop
a simple approach, termed Catalytic assembly of DNAzyme integrates with Primer Exchange Reaction (CDiPER), for reliable and
sensitive miRNA detection through the target recognition-triggered
DNAzyme assembly and primer exchange reaction (PER) strategy. In this
method, target miRNA can precisely bind with a specifically designed
hairpin probe (H probe) to induce the conformation changes of the
H probe, releasing DNAzyme sections to activate the PER process for
signal amplification and fluorescence signal production. The established
method displays a high dynamic range of over 6 orders of magnitude
and a low detection limit of 312 aM. The created method has a number
of unique advantages, such as (i) a better sensitivity than existing
systems using PER for signal amplification as a result of its integration
with the target recognition-triggered DNAzyme assembly and (ii) streamlined
operating procedures. Further, the technology was used to detect the
expression of miRNA in collected clinical samples from diabetes mellitus
patients, revealing that miRNA was decreased in patients and demonstrating
the significant clinical promise of the method.