Implantable 'Smart Tattoo' SERS Nanosensors for In Vivo Detection of Nucleic Acid Biotargets in a Large Animal Model

摘要

Although nanotechnology has led to important advances in in vitro diagnostics, the development of nanosensors for invivo molecular detection remains very challenging. Here, we demonstrated the proof‐of‐principle of in vivo detection ofnucleic acid targets using a promising type of surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) nanosensor implanted in theskin of a large animal model (pig). The in vivo “smart tattoo” nanosensor used in this study employs the “inverse molecularsentinel” (iMS) detection scheme, which is a label-free homogeneous biosensing system based on a non-enzymatic DNAstrand-displacement process and conformational change of stem-loop (hairpin) oligonucleotide probes upon target binding.In this study, plasmonics‐active nanostar was utilized as an efficient in vivo SERS sensing platform due to their tunableabsorption bands in the near infrared region of the “tissue optical window. The results of this study illustrate the usefulnessof SERS iMS nanosensors as an implantable skin‐based in vivo biosensing platform, providing a foundation fordevelopments in continuous health status sensing, disease biomarker monitoring, and other clinical translationapplications.