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Glucometer-based electrochemical biosensor for determination of microRNA (let-7a) using magnetic-assisted extraction and supersandwich signal amplification

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Abstract

A sensitive and portable biosensor is proposed for simple detection of microRNAs based on a supersandwich hybridization signal amplification strategy and a glucometer transducer. The presence of a target microRNA triggers the cascading hybridization chain reaction to create long supersandwich assemblies containing multiple biotin-labelled DNA probes. Then, large amounts of biotin-modified invertase signal molecules can attach to the supersandwich assemblies to generate an amplified signal for the glucometer readout. With such supersandwich format, a single target microRNA can introduce many biotin-invertase signal molecules, resulting in a one-to-multiple amplification effect. Thus, the accurate quantification of microRNAs can be achieved in a simple detection fashion without the requirement of expensive or precise instrumentation. The linear range of the biosensor for microRNA was from 0.05 to 100 nM with a detection limit of 48 pM. The proposed biosensor can discriminate the target microRNA from its family members with high selectivity and can be successfully applied to the detection of target microRNA spiked in serum samples with a good recovery (96.0–108.0%). Therefore, the proposed biosensor is expected to provide more information for early and accurate cancer diagnosis.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21961046, No. 21362046, and No. 21062030), Yunnan Fundamental Research Projects (grant NO. 202201AU070056), Scientific Research Foundation Project of Yunnan Provincial Department of Education (No. 2021J0436), and PhD Scientific Research Foundation of Yunnan Normal University (No. 2020ZB009), College students’ Innovative Entrepreneurial Training plan program of Yunnan Province (No. S202110681054), Graduate Students’ Scientific Research Innovation Foundation of Yunnan Normal University (No. YJSJJ22-B64).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, 650500, People’s Republic of China

    Lingli Wang, Tengteng Shan, Lu Pu, Jin Zhang, Rong Hu, Yunhui Yang, Jianmei Yang & Yan Zhao

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  1. Lingli Wang
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  2. Tengteng Shan
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  3. Lu Pu
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  4. Jin Zhang
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  7. Jianmei Yang
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  8. Yan Zhao
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Contributions

LW: conceptualization, investigation, formal analysis, writing—original draft preparation.

TS: investigation, formal analysis.

LP: investigation, formal analysis.

JZ: software, validation.

RH: investigation, formal analysis, visualization.

YY: conceptualization, supervision.

JY: writing—reviewing and editing, supervision, funding acquisition.

YZ: writing—reviewing and editing, supervision, funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Jianmei Yang or Yan Zhao.

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Wang, L., Shan, T., Pu, L. et al. Glucometer-based electrochemical biosensor for determination of microRNA (let-7a) using magnetic-assisted extraction and supersandwich signal amplification. Microchim Acta 189, 444 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-022-05544-7

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