Hairpin allosteric molecular beacons-based cascaded amplification for effective detection of lung cancer-associated microRNA

• Published in: Talanta (Oxford) Vol. 244; p. 123412
• Main Authors: Zheng, Cheng, Hu, Xuemei, Sun, Shujuan, Zhu, Lingye, Wang, Ning, Zhang, Jing, Huang, Guoqiao, Wang, Yuzhe, Huang, Xiaoying, Wang, Liangxing, Shen, Zhifa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01.07.2022
• Subjects: Biomarkers, Tumor - genetics; Biosensing Techniques; Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung - diagnosis; Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung - genetics; Detection; Humans; Limit of Detection; Lung cancer; Lung Neoplasms - diagnosis; Lung Neoplasms - genetics; microRNA; MicroRNAs - analysis; Molecular beacon; Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques; microRNA; Molecular beacon; Detection; Lung cancer
• ISSN: 0039-9140; 1873-3573
• DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2022.123412

Lung cancer with worldwide distribution, high incidence and low survival rate is significantly and increasingly threatening human health. Thus, the specific detection of lung cancer-associated biomarkers is of crucial importance in early diagnosis and treatment. In this work, taking microRNA-21 as an example, a biosensor is proposed via a stimuli-induced strand displacement amplification (SDA) and cascade signal amplification with the assistance of polymerase. An allosteric molecular beacon (MB) with chemical modification is designed to emit the enhanced fluorescent signal in presence of microRNA target. The sensing system possesses a linear calibration curve from 5 pM to 40 nM with the limit of detection (LOD) of 0.7 pM and displays good specificity to discriminate coexisting microRNAs. In addition, the feasibility is confirmed by performing the detection of miRNA-21 extracted from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) A549 cells, and a good recovery is achieved in complex human serum sample. Therefore, the miRNA-triggered cascaded amplification would be crucial strategy to facilitate microRNA analysis in the biological detection and broad clinical applications. [Display omitted] •A hairpin-type DNA probe for microRNA detection is developed via strand displacement amplification and cascade amplification.•The detection limit of 0.7 pM is achieved, accompanied by a wide dynamic range and satisfactory assay specificity.•The probe is suitable for the precise detection of miR-21 in serum sample and NSCLC A549 cells.