title: Guanine nanowire based amplification strategy: Enzyme-free biosensing of nucleic acids and proteins.
abstract: Sensitive and specific detection of nucleic acids and proteins plays a vital role in food, forensic screening, clinical and environmental monitoring. There remains a great challenge in the development of signal amplification method for biomolecules detection. Herein, we describe a novel signal amplification strategy based on the formation of guanine nanowire for quantitative detection of nucleic acids and proteins (thrombin) at room temperature. In the presence of analytes and magnesium ions, the guanine nanowire could be formed within 10 min. Compared to the widely used single G-quadruplex biocatalytic label unit, the detection limits are improved by two orders of magnitude in our assay. The proposed enzyme-free method avoids fussy chemical label-ling process, complex programming task, and sophisticated equipment, which might provide an ideal candidate for the fabrication of selective and sensitive biosensing platform.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Eco-environments in Three Gorges Reservoir Region (Ministry of Education), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, PR China.
authors.forename: Zhong Feng
authors.initials: ZF
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Eco-environments in Three Gorges Reservoir Region (Ministry of Education), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, PR China.
authors.forename: Yan Li
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Eco-environments in Three Gorges Reservoir Region (Ministry of Education), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, PR China; College of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Sichuan University of Science and Engineering, Zigong 643000, PR China.
authors.forename: Wang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Eco-environments in Three Gorges Reservoir Region (Ministry of Education), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, PR China. Electronic address: luohq@swu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Hong Qun
authors.initials: HQ
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Eco-environments in Three Gorges Reservoir Region (Ministry of Education), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, PR China. Electronic address: linb@swu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Nian Bing
authors.initials: NB
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D015374:Biosensing Techniques; D054856:G-Quadruplexes; D006147:Guanine / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D053770:Nanowires / Q000737:chemistry*; D009696:Nucleic Acids / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D013917:Thrombin / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*
chemical_list: D009696:Nucleic Acids; D006147:Guanine; D013917:Thrombin
keywords: Biosensors; DNA nanotechnology; Electrochemistry; Guanine nanowire; Signal amplification