Development of Nucleic‐Acid‐Based Electrochemical Biosensors for Clinical Applications

Abstract

Nucleic acids are remarkable molecules. In addition to Watson-Crick base pairing, the different structural motifs of these molecules can bind non-nucleic acid targets or catalyze chemical reactions. Additionally, nucleic acids are easily modified with different molecules or functional groups. These properties make nucleic acids, particularly DNA, ideally suited for use in electrochemical biosensors, both as biorecognition elements and redox reporter probes. In this Minireview, we will review the historical evolution of nucleic acids as probes in electrochemical biosensors. We will then review the specific examples of nucleic-acid-based biosensors that have been evaluated for clinical use in the areas of infectious disease, cancer, or cardiovascular health.

High‐Precision Viral Detection Using Electrochemical Kinetic Profiling of Aptamer‐Antigen Recognition in Clinical Samples and Machine Learning

“…In the context of electrochemical biosensing, affinitybased assays using structure-switching aptamers overcome the need for washing steps and offer single-pot operation. [15][16][17][18] However, a large fraction of aptamers selected through systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX), despite high affinity and selectivity, do not result in sufficient structural changes to translate target binding to a measurable electrochemical signal change. [19,20] As such there is an unmet need for universal aptamer-based electrochemical assays, structureswitching or not, that operate in a wash-free and single-pot manner.…”

Liquid NanoBiosensors Enable One‐Pot Electrochemical Detection of Bacteria in Complex Matrices

“…Electrochemical biosensors that use nucleic acids as the biorecognition element have been developed for the detection and identification of bacteria. [ 1 , 2 ] These systems provide a rapid and point‐of‐care alternative to growth culture‐based techniques for infectious disease diagnostics and are envisioned to be less operationally‐complex and expensive than methods using nucleic acid amplification. [ 1 , 3 , 4 ] Despite great promise, these electrochemical systems often lack simplicity due to the need for 1) sample processing when working with clinical specimens [ 3 , 4 ] and 2) step‐wise addition of reagents inhibiting one‐pot and one‐step operation.…”

Dye adsorbed few‐layer thick Ti3C2Tx‐MXenes for direct electrochemical detection of CD44 proteins

“…Electrochemical biosensors for cancer biomarkers have recently attracted great interest due to their chemical versatility, rapid response, high sensitivity, selectivity, and, most importantly, miniaturization capability [10,11,12,13]. Present electrochemical biosensors designed for Cd44 are based on aptamers, ligand-protein interaction, and DNA-based strategies [3].…”