School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Jalan Broga, 43500, Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Taylor's University, No. 1 Jalan Taylor's, 47500, Subang Jaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
Chem Asian J. 2021 Dec 13;16(24):4081-4086. doi: 10.1002/asia.202101145. Epub 2021 Nov 5.
miRNA (miR)-155 is a potential biomarker for breast cancers. We aimed at developing a nanosensor for miR-155 detection by integrating hybridization chain reaction (HCR) and silver nanoclusters (AgNCs). HCR serves as an enzyme-free and isothermal amplification method, whereas AgNCs provide a built-in fluorogenic detection probe that could simplify the downstream analysis. The two components were integrated by adding a nucleation sequence of AgNCs to the hairpin of HCR. The working principle was based on the influence of microenvironment towards the hosted AgNCs, whereby unfolding of hairpin upon HCR has manipulated the distance between the hosted AgNCs and cytosine-rich toehold region of hairpin. As such, the dominant emission of AgNCs changed from red to yellow in the absence and presence of miR-155, enabling a ratiometric measurement of miR with high sensitivity. The limit of detection (LOD) of our HCR-AgNCs nanosensor is 1.13 fM in buffered solution. We have also tested the assay in diluted serum samples, with comparable LOD of 1.58 fM obtained. This shows the great promise of our HCR-AgNCs nanosensor for clinical application.
miRNA (miR)-155 是乳腺癌的一个潜在生物标志物。我们旨在通过整合杂交链式反应（HCR）和银纳米簇（AgNCs）来开发用于 miR-155 检测的纳米传感器。HCR 可用作无酶且等温扩增方法，而 AgNCs 则提供了内置的荧光检测探针，可以简化下游分析。这两个组件通过在 HCR 的发夹结构中添加 AgNCs 的成核序列进行集成。其工作原理基于微环境对负载 AgNCs 的影响，HCR 引发发夹结构的展开，从而控制负载 AgNCs 与发夹富含胞嘧啶的结合区域之间的距离。因此，在没有和存在 miR-155 的情况下，AgNCs 的主导发射从红色变为黄色，实现了高灵敏度的 miR 的比率测量。我们的 HCR-AgNCs 纳米传感器在缓冲溶液中的检测限（LOD）为 1.13 fM。我们还在稀释的血清样本中测试了该测定法，得到了可比较的 LOD 为 1.58 fM。这表明我们的 HCR-AgNCs 纳米传感器在临床应用中有很大的应用前景。
