1.
Construction of Molecular Sensing and Logic Systems Based on Site-Occupying Effect-Modulated MOF-DNA Interaction.
Yu, K, Wei, T, Li, Z, Li, J, Wang, Z, Dai, Z
Journal of the American Chemical Society. 2020;(51):21267-21271
Abstract
Interactions between metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and nucleic acids are of great importance in molecular assembly. However, current MOF-nucleic acid interactions lack diversity and are normally realized in an uncontrollable manner. Herein, the interaction of zirconium-based MOFs (Zr-MOFs) with nucleic acids is enabled by the formation of Zr-O-P bonds and further manipulated by a phosphate-induced site-occupying effect. Covering Zr ions in clusters of MOFs with phosphates impedes the formation of Zr-O-P bonds with nucleic acids, rendering the MOF-nucleic acid interaction tunable and stimulus-responsive. Notably, the experimental results demonstrate that various phosphates, Zr-MOFs, and nucleic acids can all be adopted in the tunable interaction. On the basis of these findings, fluorescent DNA and typical Zr-MOFs are proposed as functional probe-quencher pairs to establish molecular sensing and logic systems. Accordingly, alkaline phosphatase and inorganic pyrophosphatase can be quantified simultaneously, and the overall relation of different phosphates and phosphatases is facilely displayed. The work provides a general strategy for modulating MOF-nucleic acid interactions, which is conducive to the development of molecular intelligent systems.
2.
The Applications of Promoter-gene-Engineered Biosensors.
Feng, Y, Xie, Z, Jiang, X, Li, Z, Shen, Y, Wang, B, Liu, J
Sensors (Basel, Switzerland). 2018;(9)
Abstract
A promoter is a small region of a DNA sequence that responds to various transcription factors, which initiates a particular gene expression. The promoter-engineered biosensor can activate or repress gene expression through a transcription factor recognizing specific molecules, such as polyamine, sugars, lactams, amino acids, organic acids, or a redox molecule; however, there are few reported applications of promoter-enhanced biosensors. This review paper highlights the strategies of construction of promoter gene-engineered biosensors with human and bacteria genetic promoter arrays with regard to high-throughput screening (HTS) molecular drugs, the study of the membrane protein's localization and nucleocytoplasmic shuttling mechanism of regulating factors, enzyme activity, detection of the toxicity of intermediate chemicals, and probing bacteria density to improve value-added product titer. These biosensors' sensitivity and specificity can be further improved by the proposed approaches of Mn2+ and Mg2+ added random e error-prone PCR that is a technique used to generate randomized genomic libraries and site-directed mutagenesis approach, which is applied for the construction of bacteria's "mutant library". This is expected to establish a flexible HTS platform (biosensor array) to large-scale screen transcription factor-acting drugs, reduce the toxicity of intermediate compounds, and construct a gene-dynamic regulatory system in "push and pull" mode, in order to effectively regulate the valuable medicinal product production. These proposed novel promoter-engineered biosensors aiding in synthetic genetic circuit construction will maximize the efficiency of the bio-synthesis of medicinal compounds, which will greatly promote the development of microbial metabolic engineering and biomedical science.
3.
Experimental study of Love-wave immunosensors based on ZnO/LiTaO3 structures.
Zhou, FM, Li, Z, Fan, L, Zhang, SY, Shui, XJ
Ultrasonics. 2010;(3):411-5
Abstract
Experimental study of Love-mode immunosensors based on structures of ZnO/36 degrees YX-LiTaO3 is presented, in which the ZnO films with c-axis (002) orientation have been successfully grown on the 36 degrees YX-LiTaO3 substrates by RF magnetron sputtering technique. Then the Love-mode immunosensors based on the ZnO/36 degrees YX-LiTaO3 structures and monitoring antibody-antigen immunoreactions in aqueous solutions in real time are fabricated. The experimental results show that the optimal thickness of ZnO layers is about 1.20 microm in the structures deposited on 36 degrees YX-LiTaO3 substrates, which is much less than that of SiO2 overlayers about 6 microm. The antibody-antigen immunoreaction experiments also show that the frequency shifts of the sensors with 1.33 microm ZnO films are proportional to the concentration of antigen in solution as the concentration range less than 100 microg/ml.