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Long-term continuous monitoring of microRNA in living cells using modified gold nanoprobe

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Abstract

Long-term and continuous monitoring of the microRNA (miRNA) expression in living cells is essential in biomedical research, but it is currently limited by fast consumption and easy digestion of probes in the intracellular environment. Herein, we report polydopamine-modified gold nanoparticles (AuNPs@PDA) as protective and efficient nanocarriers for DNA hairpin probes (hpDNA), achieving long-term monitoring (48 h) of the miRNA (let-7a) levels in living cells after drug treatments. This method enabled excellent sensitivity and high selectivity toward let-7a with a limit of detection of 0.51 nM (n = 3) and a linear range from 1 to 100 nM. More importantly, AuNPs@PDA can not only efficiently improve the loading of hpDNA on each nanoparticle, but also effectively protect hpDNA from hydrolysis in the cell microenvironment, finally realizing the continuous monitoring of let-7a in living cells for 48 h. This simple method would be of great significance for drug screening and precision medicine.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Scientific Technology Project of Shenzhen City (JCYJ20200109142410170 and JCYJ20210324120601004), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21801259 and 21974153), the Guangdong Natural Science Foundation (2022A1515011318), the Scientific Technology Project of Guangzhou City (202103000003), and the Guangdong Science and Technology Plan Project Grant (2020B1212060077).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Yuling Liang, Huihui Yang, Wen Yin, Yanfei Zhang & Xiaoyong Zou

  2. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Sensing Technology and Biomedical Instrument, School of Biomedical Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Shenzhen, 518107, China

    Si-Yang Liu & Zong Dai

  3. Scientific Research Center, The Seventh Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Shenzhen, 518107, China

    Yuzhi Xu

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  1. Yuling Liang
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Liang, Y., Yang, H., Yin, W. et al. Long-term continuous monitoring of microRNA in living cells using modified gold nanoprobe. Anal Bioanal Chem 414, 6157–6166 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-022-04182-5

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