Ultrasensitive Detection of MicroRNA via a Au@Ag Nanosnowman

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play key roles in many serious diseases, such as cancer. As a consequence, miRNAs are of great interest as biomarkers in clinical diagnostics. Simple, fast, selective, and sensitive detection of miRNAs, however, is challenged by their short length, homogeneous sequence, susceptibility to degradation, and low abundance in human serum. Here, we present a new strategy for highly sensitive and selective detection of miRNA based on the formation of a plasmonic Au@Ag nanosnowman. When triggered by miRNA-21, bimetallic nanoparticles with an asymmetric Au@Ag head–body structure were formed with significant red shift of the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) scattering wavelength and clear color change from green to red. When combined with exonuclease III (Exo III)-assisted target recycling and hybridization chain reaction (HCR) amplification strategy, the proposed bioassay showed excellent selectivity toward miRNA-21 with a proportional band from 1 fM to 100 pM and ultrahigh sensitivity with a limit of detection of 0.60 fM under dark-field microscopy. The proposed strategy is universal, which shows good application prospects in clinical analysis.