Nuclease activity: an exploitable biomarker in bacterial infections

Robust Rules for Optimal Colorimetric Sensing Based on Gold Nanoparticle Aggregation

“…To emulate a sensing event, we perform testing experiments on selected DNA-driven aggregation of gold nanoparticles functionalized with single-stranded DNA 26 ( Table S1 ). DNA is a versatile and tunable biomolecular platform driving nanoparticle aggregation, which has been proposed for numerous sensing applications, including food safety 27 and liquid biopsy. 28 When two batches of gold nanoparticles bearing complementary DNA are put in contact, aggregation starts, leading to a gradual color transition from red to blue ( Figure 2 ).…”

Pathogen-Derived Nucleases: An Effective Weapon for Escaping Extracellular Traps

“…Since their discovery in 2004, ETs have been described from a wide variety of innate immune cells and are now widely regarded as an ancient and evolutionarily conserved host defense mechanism in the plant and animal kingdoms ( 119 , 120 ). Several pathogens can produce one or more nucleases to directly act on the DNA skeleton of ETs ( 6 ). In this review, we summarized the current study results on nucleases expressed by pathogens to evade the ETs produced by the host immune system.…”

“…According to their biochemical and biological properties as well as tissue-specific production, DNases can be further divided into the DNase I and DNase II families ( 4 ). Pathogen nucleases are mainly involved in physiological processes such as genetic transformation and nutrient scavenging, DNA replication, recombination and DNA repair mechanisms ( 5 ); but, they can also act as virulence factors ( 5 ), regulate of biofilm formation, enhance fitness and bacterial shedding ( 6 ), and allow microbes to enter non-phagocytic cells or survive and replicate in phagocytic cells.…”

Fluorescent and electrochemical detection of nuclease activity associated with Streptococcus pneumoniae using specific oligonucleotide probes

“…21 Herein, we report on a novel biomarker for specific identification and targeting of S. pneumoniae using the nuclease activity associated with these bacteria. Nuclease activity has been proposed as an attractive biomarker for bacterial identification, 22,23 leveraging the catalytic function of nucleases to increase the sensitivity by degrading oligonucleotide substrates. This operational concept has been effectively applied to identify bacteria, cancer cells, and various human conditions.…”