Coaxial sensing bio-amplifier for ultrasensitive detections of circulating tumor DNAs

We herein report the first attempt to engineer a coaxial-sensing 3D amplifier able to achieve dynamic self-assembly in response to a mutated-ctDNA target. A bio-nanofiber is firstly manufactured via an ingenious double-channel electrostatic spinning and DNA rolling circle replication (RCR) technology, which offered an ideal scaffold for assembly of 3D amplifier activated by target recognition. The coaxial-controllable signal amplifier presented several advantages. (1) Given its coaxial sensing effect, the proposed bio-amplifier played the coaxial transduction for signal enrichment to vastly increase sensitivity, capable of discriminating a single-base mismatched sequence from the perfectly complementary one, using ctDNA-134A as a model analyte. (2) Due to covalent bridges lock effect in an identifying chip with locked nucleic acid beacons, this 3D amplifier expressed high specificity and biostability toward seven different mutated-ctDNAs. (3) Profiting from special configuration of bioactive nanofibers and DNA replication programming, this catalytic bio-amplifier possessed signal enrichment effect, which enhanced dynamic range toward ctDNA-134A detection and hybridized without any external indicators. This innovative bio-amplifier has a detection limit of 5.1 aM for ctDNA-134A with superior specificity, excellent sensitivity, and good performance. This pioneered method was further applied for broadly differentiate cells and evaluate changes in the expression levels of intracellular mutated-ctDNAs.