Enzymatic Synthesis of Redox-Labeled RNA and Dual-Potential Detection at DNA-Modified Electrodes

摘要

Electrochemical techniques offer attractive approaches to the detection and identification of nucleic acids, a central activity of modern chemical biology. High sensitivity, low instrumentation costs, a ready capacity for miniaturization, and direct electronic readout offer strong motivations for the development of this field. Various approaches have been explored, including conjugation of DNA oligonucleotides with electroactive reporters, use of soluble electroactive mediators or intercalators, redox enzyme mediation, and measurement of direct label-free electrochemical processes or field effects. All of these methods rely critically upon hybridization of complementary nucleic acid sequences for specific recognition while some utilize charge transport through the π-stack of duplex DNA. Of the known methods, explicit electroactive labeling has the combined advantages of a positive detection signal, a low background, and the ability to introduce several electrochemically distinguishable tags.