Institute for Translational Medicine, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, College of Medicine, Qingdao University, 1 Ningde Road, Qingdao 266073, China.
Biosensors (Basel). 2023 Jul 20;13(7):747. doi: 10.3390/bios13070747.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small noncoding RNAs that are approximately 22 nt in length and regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally. miRNAs play a vital role in both physiological and pathological processes and are regarded as promising biomarkers for cancer, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, and so on. Accurate detection of miRNA expression level in clinical samples is important for miRNA-guided diagnostics. However, the common miRNA detection approaches like RNA sequencing, qRT-PCR, and miRNA microarray are performed in a professional laboratory with complex intermediate steps and are time-consuming and costly, challenging the miRNA-guided diagnostics. Hence, sensitive, highly specific, rapid, and easy-to-use detection of miRNAs is crucial for clinical diagnosis based on miRNAs. With the advantages of being specific, sensitive, efficient, cost-saving, and easy to operate, point-of-care testing (POCT) has been widely used in the detection of miRNAs. For the first time, we mainly focus on summarizing the research progress in POCT of miRNAs based on portable instruments and visual readout methods. As widely available pocket-size portable instruments and visual detection play important roles in POCT, we provide an all-sided discussion of the principles of these methods and their main limitations and challenges, in order to provide a guide for the development of more accurate, specific, and sensitive POCT methods for miRNA detection.
微小 RNA（miRNA）是一类长度约为 22 个核苷酸的小型非编码 RNA，在后转录水平上调节基因表达。miRNA 在生理和病理过程中都起着至关重要的作用，被认为是癌症、心血管疾病、神经退行性疾病等的有前途的生物标志物。准确检测临床样本中的 miRNA 表达水平对于 miRNA 指导的诊断很重要。然而，常见的 miRNA 检测方法，如 RNA 测序、qRT-PCR 和 miRNA 微阵列，都需要在专业实验室中进行，具有复杂的中间步骤，耗时且昂贵，对 miRNA 指导的诊断构成挑战。因此，基于 miRNA 的临床诊断需要敏感、高度特异、快速且易于使用的 miRNA 检测方法。基于即时检测（POCT）具有特异性强、灵敏度高、效率高、节省成本和易于操作等优点，已广泛应用于 miRNA 的检测中。本文首次主要关注基于便携式仪器和可视化读出方法的 miRNA 的 POCT 研究进展。由于普及的口袋大小的便携式仪器和可视化检测在 POCT 中起着重要作用，我们全面讨论了这些方法的原理及其主要的局限性和挑战，以期为开发更准确、特异和敏感的 miRNA 检测 POCT 方法提供指导。
