Interest in the development of sensitive, selective, rapid, and cost-effective biosensors for biomedical analysis, environmental monitoring, and the detection of bioterrorism agents is rapidly increasing. A classic biosensor directly transduces ligand-target binding events into a measurable physical readout. More recently, researchers have proposed novel biosensing strategies that couple ligand-induced structural switching of biomolecules with advanced optical and electronic transducers. This approach has proven to be a highly general platform for the development of new biosensors. In this Account, we describe a series of electrochemical and optical nucleic acid sensors that use target-responsive DNA structures. By employing surface-confined DNA structures with appropriate redox labels, we can monitor target-induced structural switching of DNA or aptamer-specific small molecule probes by measuring electrochemical currents that are directly associated with the distance between the redox label and the electrode surface. We have also demonstrated significant improvements in sensing performance through optimization of the DNA self-assembly process at electrode surfaces or the introduction of nanomaterial-based signal amplification. Alternatively, gold nanoparticles interact differently with folded and unfolded DNA structures, which provides a visual method for detecting target-induced structural switching based on the plasmonic change of gold nanoparticles. This novel method using gold nanoparticles has proven particularly suitable for the detection of a range of small-molecule targets (e.g., cocaine) and environmentally toxic metal ions (e.g., Hg(2+)). Rational sequence design of DNA aptamers improves the sensitivity and increases the reaction kinetics. Recently, we have also designed microfluidic devices that allow rapid and portable mercury detection with the naked eye. This Account focuses on the use of bulk and nanoscale gold and DNA/aptamer molecules. We expect that researchers will further expand the analyte spectrum and improve the sensitivity and selectivity of nucleic acid sensors using functional biomolecules, such as DNAzymes, peptide aptamers and engineered proteins, and nanomaterials of different sizes, dimensions and compositions, such as carbon nanotubes, graphene, silicon nanowires, and metal nanoparticles or nanorods.

Strand and deliver: Two different optical methods to analyze Hg2+ ions based on the formation of thymine–Hg2+ complexes are developed. These methods include the analysis of Hg2+ ions by using aggregated gold nanoparticles and by using a DNA‐based machine (see scheme).

Blocked aptamer-DNAzyme conjugates act as aptasensors for the amplified analysis of adenosine 5‘-monophosphate or lysozyme.

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