Fe₃O₄@Ag magnetic nanoparticles for microRNA capture and duplex-specific nuclease signal amplification based SERS detection in cancer cells

A functionalized Fe₃O₄@Ag magnetic nanoparticle (NP) biosensor for microRNA (miRNA) capture and ultrasensitive detection in total RNA extract from cancer cells was reported in this paper. Herein, Raman tags-DNA probes modified Fe₃O₄@Ag NPs were designed both as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) SERS and duplex-specific nuclease signal amplification (DSNSA) platform. Firstly, target miRNAs were captured to the surface of Fe₃O₄@Ag NPs through DNA/RNA hybridization. In the presence of endonuclease duplex specific nuclease (DSN), one target miRNA molecule could rehybrid thousands of DNA probes to trigger the signal-amplifying recycling. Base on the superparamagnetic of Fe₃O₄@Ag NPs, target miRNA let-7b can be captured, concentrated and direct quantified within a PE tube without any PCR preamplification treatment. The detection limit was 0.3fM (15 zeptomole, 50μL), nearly 3 orders of magnitude lower than conventional fluorescence based DSN biosensors for miRNA(~100fM), even single-base difference between the let-7 family members can be discriminated. The result provides a novel proposal to combine the perfect single-base recognition and signal-amplifying ability of the endonuclease DSN with cost-effective SERS strategy for miRNA point-of-care (POC) clinical diagnostics.