A novel ratiometric electrochemical biosensing strategy based on T7 exonuclease-assisted homogenous target recycling coupling hairpin assembly-triggered double-signal output for the multiple amplified detection of miRNA

Abstract

A novel ratiometric electrochemical biosensing strategy based on T7 exonuclease (T7 Exo)-assisted homogenous target recycling coupling hairpin assembly triggered dual-signal output was proposed for the accurate and sensitive detection of microRNA-141 (miRNA-141). Concretely, in the presence of target miRNA, abundant signal transduction probes were released via the T7 Exo-assisted homogenous target recycling amplification, which could be captured by the specially designed ferrocene-labeled hairpin probe (Fc-H1) on -electrode interface and triggered the nonenzymatic catalytic hairpin assembly (Fc-H1 + MB-H2) to realize the cascade signal amplification and dual-signal output. Through such a conformational change process, the electrochemical signal of Fc (I_Fc) and MB (I_MB) is proportionally and substantially decreased and increased. Therefore, the signal ratio of I_MB/I_Fc can be employed to accurately reflect the true level of original miRNA. Benefiting from the efficient integration of the T7 Exo-assisted target recycle, nonenzymatic hairpin assembly and dual-signal output mode, the proposed sensor could realize the amplified detection of miRNA-141 effectively with a wide detection range from 1 fM to 100 pM, and a detection limit of 200 aM. Furthermore, it exhibits outstanding sequence specificity to discriminate mismatched RNA, acceptable reproducibility and feasibility for real sample. This strategy effectively integrated the advantages of multiple amplification and ratiometric output modes, which could provide an accurate and efficient method in biosensing and clinical diagnosis.