Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Michael D. DeGroote Infectious Disease Research Institute, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4K1, Canada.
Adv Biochem Eng Biotechnol. 2014;140:69-92. doi: 10.1007/10_2013_223.
The process of "structure-switching" enables biomolecular switches to function as effective biosensing tools. Biomolecular switches can be activated or inactivated by binding to a specific target that triggers a precise conformational change in the biomolecules involved. Although many examples of aptamer-based biomolecular switches can be found in nature, substantial effort has been made in the last decade to engineer structure-switching aptamer sensors by coupling aptamers to a signal transduction method to generate a readout signal upon target binding to the aptamer domain. This chapter focuses on the progress of research on engineered structure-switching aptamer sensors. We begin by discussing the origin of the structure-switching aptamer design, highlight the key developments of structure-switching DNA aptamers for fluorescence-, electrochemistry-, and colorimetry-based detection, and introduce our recent efforts in exploring RNA aptamers to create structure-switching molecular sensors.
“结构切换”过程使生物分子开关能够作为有效的生物传感工具发挥作用。生物分子开关可以通过与特定的靶标结合而被激活或失活，该靶标触发涉及的生物分子发生精确的构象变化。尽管自然界中存在许多基于适体的生物分子开关的例子，但在过去十年中，人们已经做出了巨大的努力，通过将适体与信号转导方法偶联，来构建结构切换适体传感器，从而在适体域与靶标结合时产生读出信号。本章重点介绍了工程结构切换适体传感器研究的进展。我们首先讨论了结构切换适体设计的起源，强调了用于荧光、电化学和比色检测的结构切换 DNA 适体的关键发展，并介绍了我们最近在探索 RNA 适体以创建结构切换分子传感器方面的努力。
