Evidence Hub

Modular DNA origami-based electrochemical detection of DNA and proteins

Jeon BJ, Guareschi MM, Stewart JM, Wu E, Gopinath A, Arroyo-Currás N, Dauphin-Ducharme P, Plaxco KW et al.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2025

Abstract

The diversity and heterogeneity of biomarkers has made the development of general methods for single-step quantification of analytes difficult. For individual biomarkers, electrochemical methods that detect a conformational change in an affinity binder upon analyte binding have shown promise. However, because the conformational change must operate within a nanometer-scale working distance, an entirely new sensor, with a unique conformational change, must be developed for each analyte. Here, we demonstrate a modular electrochemical biosensor, built from DNA origami, which is easily adapted to diverse molecules by merely replacing its analyte binding domains. Instead of relying on a unique nanometer-scale movement of a single redox reporter, all sensor variants rely on the same 100-nm scale conformational change, which brings dozens of reporters close enough to a gold electrode surface that a signal can be measured via square-wave voltammetry, a standard electrochemical technique. To validate our sensor's mechanism, we used single-stranded DNA as an analyte, and optimized the number of redox reporters and various linker lengths. Adaptation of the sensor to streptavidin and Platelet-Derived Growth Factor-BB (PDGF-BB) analytes was achieved by simply adding biotin or anti-PDGF aptamers to appropriate DNA linkers. Geometrically optimized streptavidin sensors exhibited signal gain and limit of detection markedly better than comparable reagentless electrochemical sensors. After use,…

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free