In Situ Hot-Spot Assembly as a General Strategy for Probing Single Biomolecules.
Huiqiao LiuQiang LiMingmin LiSisi MaDingbin LiuPublished in: Analytical chemistry (2017)
Single-molecule detection using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has attracted increasing attention in chemical and biomedical analysis. However, it remains a major challenge to probe single biomolecules by means of SERS hot spots owing to the small volume of hot spots and their random distribution on substrates. We here report an in situ hot-spot assembly method as a general strategy for probing single biomolecules. As a proof-of-concept, this proposed strategy was successfully used for the detection of single microRNA-21 (miRNA-21, a potential cancer biomarker) at the single-cell level, showing great capability in differentiating the expression of miRNA-21 in single cancer cells from normal cells. This approach was further extended to single-protein detection. The versatility of the strategy opens an exciting avenue for single-molecule detection of biomarkers of interest and thus holds great promise in a variety of biological and biomedical applications.
Keyphrases
- single molecule
- raman spectroscopy
- living cells
- single cell
- gold nanoparticles
- atomic force microscopy
- computed tomography
- induced apoptosis
- quantum dots
- real time pcr
- sensitive detection
- oxidative stress
- signaling pathway
- poor prognosis
- working memory
- deep learning
- rna seq
- risk assessment
- high throughput
- cell cycle arrest
- binding protein
- long non coding rna
- artificial intelligence
- small molecule
- big data
- squamous cell
- contrast enhanced
- endoplasmic reticulum stress