THESIS
2016
xx, 120 pages : illustrations ; 30 cm
Abstract
Biosensors are functional devices that can translate specific recognition events
between biologically relevant species into measurable signals. DNA-based
biosensors, particularly hairpin DNA probe (HDP)-based biosensors, have drawn
considerable interest due to the merits of HDP probes, such as the ease of signal
amplification and the superb specificity in sequence recognition. Currently,
HDP-based biosensors highly depend on the employment of enzymes to improve
sensitivity. But enzymes are usually rather expensive, highly sequence-dependent,
and vulnerable to the changes in reaction conditions, which greatly hinder the
application of enzymes in biosensor development. To upgrade the detection
sensitivity, another promising alternative is the construction of HDP-based solid-state...[
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Biosensors are functional devices that can translate specific recognition events
between biologically relevant species into measurable signals. DNA-based
biosensors, particularly hairpin DNA probe (HDP)-based biosensors, have drawn
considerable interest due to the merits of HDP probes, such as the ease of signal
amplification and the superb specificity in sequence recognition. Currently,
HDP-based biosensors highly depend on the employment of enzymes to improve
sensitivity. But enzymes are usually rather expensive, highly sequence-dependent,
and vulnerable to the changes in reaction conditions, which greatly hinder the
application of enzymes in biosensor development. To upgrade the detection
sensitivity, another promising alternative is the construction of HDP-based solid-state
biosensing platforms. But problems still exist. There are always so many tedious
procedures required to realize the detection, such as immobilization, separation and
washing steps, which make the measurement time-consuming and complex.
This dissertation aims at fabricating novel HDP-based biosensors that, perform
conveniently, are relatively inexpensive, while being highly sensitive and selective for
the quantification of targets, including DNA and metal ions. To improve the
detection sensitivity, some DNA amplification mechanisms and advanced
nanomaterials are incorporated into the proposed sensing systems. To simplify the
sensing systems, enzymes are not required, and only one “mix-and-measure” step is needed, which make them much easier to use than the enzyme-involved sensing
systems or solid-state platforms.
All the proposed methods are relatively simple and low-cost, yet highly sensitive
and specific for the determination of DNA and metal ions, which holds a promising
potential for biomedical diagnosis and environmental monitoring.
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