PubReading [317] - Nucleic acid sensing via electrochemical oligonucleotide-templated reactions - P. Gillespie, D. O’Har et al.

Short single-stranded nucleic acids as found in a variety of bodily fluids have recently emerged as minimally invasive biomarkers for a broad range of pathologies, most notably cancer. Because of their small size, low natural abundance and high sequence homology between family members they are challenging to detect using standard technologies suitable for use at the point-of-care. Herein we report the design, engineering and testing of a novel sensing strategy: electrochemically active molecular probes based on peptide nucleic acid (PNA) scaffolds for the detection of single-stranded oligonucleotides, in particular microRNAs (or miRs). As a proof-of- principle, a wide range of probes were designed and tested to detect miR-141, a known diagnostic biomarker for prostate cancer. Optimal quantitative sensing of miR-141 was achieved v ...