Giannetti Ambra, Barucci Andrea, Cosi Franco, Pelli Stefano, Tombelli Sara, Trono Cosimo, Baldini Francesco
CNR-Institute of Applied Physics "Nello Carrara", Via Madonna del Piano 10, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy.
Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi, Piazza del Viminale 1, 00184 Rome, Italy.
Sensors (Basel). 2015 Apr 24;15(5):9666-80. doi: 10.3390/s150509666.
Optical fiber sensors, thanks to their compactness, fast response and real-time measurements, have a large impact in the fields of life science research, drug discovery and medical diagnostics. In recent years, advances in nanotechnology have resulted in the development of nanotools, capable of entering the single cell, resulting in new nanobiosensors useful for the detection of biomolecules inside living cells. In this paper, we provide an application of a nanotip coupled with molecular beacons (MBs) for the detection of DNA. The MBs were characterized by hybridization studies with a complementary target to prove their functionality both free in solution and immobilized onto a solid support. The solid support chosen as substrate for the immobilization of the MBs was a 30 nm tapered tip of an optical fiber, fabricated by chemical etching. With this set-up promising results were obtained and a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.57 nM was reached, opening up the possibility of using the proposed nanotip to detect mRNAs inside the cytoplasm of living cells.
光纤传感器因其紧凑性、快速响应和实时测量，在生命科学研究、药物发现和医学诊断领域产生了重大影响。近年来，纳米技术的进步推动了纳米工具的发展，这些工具能够进入单细胞，从而产生了可用于检测活细胞内生物分子的新型纳米生物传感器。在本文中，我们展示了一种结合分子信标（MBs）的纳米尖端用于DNA检测的应用。通过与互补靶标的杂交研究对MBs进行了表征，以证明其在溶液中游离和固定在固体支持物上时的功能。选为固定MBs的固体支持物的底物是通过化学蚀刻制造的30纳米光纤锥形尖端。通过这种设置获得了有前景的结果，检测限（LOD）达到了0.57 nM，这为使用所提出的纳米尖端检测活细胞胞质内的mRNA开辟了可能性。
