Method for biosensing the binding capacity between a biomolecule and a virus using a virus-lasing detection probe

摘要

Selective amplification of DNA in PCR is used to increase the signal exponentially in molecular diagnostics for nucleic acids, but there are no similar techniques for signal enhancement in clinical trials on proteins or cells. Instead, the signals from affinity-based measurements of these biomolecules are linearly dependent on the probe concentration. Replacing tagged antibody-based probes for fluorescence quantification with laser detection probes will create a new platform for biomarker quantification based on optics rather than enzymatic amplification. Here, a viral laser is built that bridges synthetic biology and laser physics, which demonstrates a virus-lasing probe for biosensing. Upon transition to lasing, the photon flux from the probe increases 10 ⁵ times, and the spectral line width narrows to less than 5.0 nm. Virus-lasing probes show an unprecedented 1,000,000% increase in signal from only 50% increase in probe concentration using a fluorometer-compatible optic, and are capable of detecting biomolecules at clinically relevant concentrations.