Yong Qian

Ultrasensitive electrochemical detection of DNA based on Zn2+ assistant DNA recycling followed with hybridization chain reaction dual amplification

A new strategy to combine Zn(2+) assistant DNA recycling followed with hybridization chain reaction dual amplification was designed for highly sensitive electrochemical detection of target DNA. A gold electrode was used to immobilize molecular beacon (MB) as the recognition probe and perform the amplification procedure. In the presence of the target DNA, the hairpin probe 1 was opened, and the DNAzyme was liberated from the caged structure. The activated DNAzyme hybridized with the MB and catalyzed its cleavage in the presence of Zn(2+) cofactor and resulting in a free DNAzyme strand. Finally, each target-induced activated DNAzyme underwent many cycles triggering the cleavage of MB, thus forming numerous MB fragments. The MB fragments triggered the HCR and formed a long double-helix DNA structure. Because both H1 and H2 were labeled by biotin, a lot of SA-ALP was captured on the electrode surface, thus catalyzing a silver deposition process for electrochemical stripping analysis. This novel cascade signal amplification strategy can detect target DNA down to the attomolar level with a dynamic range spanning 6 orders of magnitude. This highly sensitive and specific assay has a great potential to become a promising DNA quantification method in biomedical research and clinical diagnosis.

Enzyme-free amplification for sensitive electrochemical detection of DNA via target-catalyzed hairpin assembly assisted current change.

An isothermal, enzyme-free and sensitive method for electrochemical detection of DNA is proposed based on target catalyzed hairpin assembly and for signal amplification. Molecular beacon 1 (MB1) contains a ferrocene (Fc) tag, which was immobilized on the gold electrode as recognition probe to hybridize with target DNA. Then, molecular beacon 2 hybridized with the opened MB1, allowing the target to be displaced. The displaced target again triggered the next round of strand exchange reaction resulting in many Fc far away from the GE to achieve signal amplification for sensitive DNA detection. The current signal amplification strategy is relatively simple and inexpensive owing to avoid the use of any kind of enzyme or sophisticated equipment. It can achieve a sensitivity of 42 fM with a wide linear dynamic range from 10(-13) to 10(-9)M and discriminate mismatched DNA from perfect matched target DNA with a high selectivity. The proposed method showed excellent specificity, high sensitivity and low detection limit, and could be applied in analysis of real samples.

Preferential Growth of Semiconducting Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes on Substrate by Europium Oxide

In this paper, we have demonstrated that europium oxide (Eu2O3) is a new type of active catalyst for single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) growth under suitable conditions. Both random SWNT networks and horizontally aligned SWNT arrays are efficiently grown on silicon wafers. The density of the SWNT arrays can be altered by the CVD conditions. This result further provides the experimental evidence that the efficient catalyst for SWNT growth is more size dependent than the catalysts themselves. Furthermore, the SWNTs from europium sesquioxides have compatibly higher quality than that from Fe/Mo catalyst. More importantly, over 80% of the nanotubes from Eu2O3 are semiconducting SWNTs (s-SWNTs), indicating the preferential growth of s-SWNTs from Eu2O3. This new finding could open a way for selective growth of s-SWNTs, which can be used as high-current nanoFETs and sensors. Moreover, the successful growth of SWNTs by Eu2O3 catalyst provides new experimental information for understanding the preferential growth of s-SWNTs from Eu2O3, which may be helpful for their controllable synthesis.

Assistant deoxyribonucleic acid recycling with Zn2+ and molecular beacon for electrochemical detection of deoxyribonucleic acid via target-triggered assembly of mutated DNAzyme

A novel enzyme-free amplification strategy was designed for sensitive electrochemical detection of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) based on Zn(2+) assistant DNA recycling via target-triggered assembly of mutated DNAzyme. A gold electrode was used to immobilize molecular beacon (MB) as the recognition probe and perform the amplification procedure. In the presence of target DNA, the hairpin probe 1 was opened, and the DNAzyme was liberated from the caged structure. The activated DNAzyme first hybridized and then cleaved the MB in the presence of cofactor Zn(2+). After cleavage, the MB was cleaved into two pieces and the ferrocene (Fc) labeled piece dissociated from the gold electrode, thus obviously decreasing the Fc signal and forming a free DNAzyme strand. Finally, each target-induced activated DNAzyme underwent many cycles to trigger the cleavage of many MB substrates. Therefore, the peak current of Fc dramatically decreased to approximately zero. The strategy showed a detection limit at 35 fM levels, which was about 2 orders of magnitude lower than that of the conventional hybridization without Zn(2+)-based amplification. The Zn(2+) assistant DNA recycling offers a versatile platform for DNA detection in a cost-effective manner, and has a promising application in clinical diagnosis.

Dysprosium-Catalyzed Growth of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Arrays on Substrates

In this letter, we report that dysprosium is an effective catalyst for single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) growth via a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process for the first time. Horizontally superlong well-oriented SWNT arrays on SiO2/Si wafer can be fabricated by EtOH-CVD under suitable conditions. The structure and properties are characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transition electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy. The results show that the SWNTs from dysprosium have better structural uniformity and better conductivity with fewer defects. This rare earth metal provides not only an alternative catalyst for SWNTs growth, but also a possible method to generate high percentage of superlong semiconducting SWNT arrays for various applications of nanoelectronic device.