Folding-Based Electrochemical Biosensors: The Case for Responsive Nucleic Acid Architectures

作者：Arica A. Lubin, Kevin W. Plaxco · 发表于：Accounts of Chemical Research · 年份：2010 · DOI：10.1021/ar900165x · 被引用次数：513 · 研究领域：Advanced biosensing and bioanalysis techniques、Biosensors and Analytical Detection、RNA and protein synthesis mechanisms

Biomolecular recognition is versatile, specific, and high affinity, qualities that have motivated decades of research aimed at adapting biomolecules into a general platform for molecular sensing. Despite significant effort, however, so-called "biosensors" have almost entirely failed to achieve their potential as reagentless, real-time analytical devices; the only quantitative, reagentless biosensor to achieve commercial success so far is the home glucose monitor, employed by millions of diabetics. The fundamental stumbling block that has precluded more widespread success of biosensors is the failure of most biomolecules to produce an easily measured signal upon target binding. Antibodies, for example, do not change their shape or dynamics when they bind their recognition partners, nor do they emit light or electrons upon binding. It has thus proven difficult to transduce biomolecular binding events into a measurable output signal, particularly one that is not readily spoofed by the binding of any of the many potentially interfering species in typical biological samples. Analytical approaches based on biomolecular recognition are therefore mostly cumbersome, multistep processes relying on analyte separation and isolation (such as Western blots, ELISA, and other immunochemical methods); these techniques have proven enormously useful, but are limited almost exclusively to laboratory settings. In this Account, we describe how we have refined a potentially general solution to the ...