title: Entropy-driven reactions in living cells for assay let-7a microRNA.
abstract: Imaging of microRNA (miRNA) in living cells could facilitate the monitoring of the expression and distribution of miRNA and research on miRNA-related diseases. Given the low expression levels and even down-regulation of cellular miRNA that is associated with some diseases, enzyme-free amplification strategies are imperative for intracellular miRNA assay. In this work, we report an entropy-driven reaction for amplification assay miRNA with a detection limit of 0.27 pM. The resulting signal amplification provides excellent recognition and signal enhancement of specific miRNAs in living cells. This method supplies accurate information regarding cellular miRNA-related biological events and provides a new tool for highly sensitive and simultaneous imaging of multiple low-level biomarkers, thereby improving the accuracy of early disease diagnosis.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Nuclear Medicine, Ministry of Health, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular Nuclear Medicine, Jiangsu Institute of Nuclear Medicine, Wuxi, Jiangsu, 214063, China. Electronic address: zhangkai@jsinm.org.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Nuclear Medicine, Ministry of Health, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular Nuclear Medicine, Jiangsu Institute of Nuclear Medicine, Wuxi, Jiangsu, 214063, China.
authors.forename: Ke
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Nuclear Medicine, Ministry of Health, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular Nuclear Medicine, Jiangsu Institute of Nuclear Medicine, Wuxi, Jiangsu, 214063, China.
authors.forename: Xue
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Nuclear Medicine, Ministry of Health, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular Nuclear Medicine, Jiangsu Institute of Nuclear Medicine, Wuxi, Jiangsu, 214063, China.
authors.forename: Minhao
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Xie
mesh_terms: D000072283:A549 Cells; D001681:Biological Assay; D019277:Entropy; D006801:Humans; D057230:Limit of Detection; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000032:analysis*; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: D035683:MicroRNAs; C487931:mirnlet7 microRNA, human
keywords: Amplification method; Entropy-driven; Living cells; miRNA