Stabilization of ssRNA
on Graphene Oxide Surface:
An Effective Way to Design Highly Robust RNA Probes
- Publication date
- Publisher
Abstract
RNA probes constitute an important class of functional
nucleic
acids (FNAs). However, because of their notorious vulnerability to
enzymatic degradation, extremely careful and special protocols must
be followed when dealing with RNA probes. To fully use the large number
of RNA FNAs available for bioanalysis and biomedicine, it is important
to explore effective methods to protect RNA probes from enzymatic
digestion. In this work, we systematically demonstrate that graphene
oxide (GO) can effectively protect RNA probes from enzymatic digestion.
Based on this finding, we propose an effective way to design robust
RNA biosensors by simply mixing RNA probes with GO for analysis of
nucleic acids, proteins, and small molecules. The entire assay is
sensitive, selective, rapid, and more importantly, does not require
any special protocols. The ability to protect ssRNA from enzymatic
digestion by GO offers an exciting new way to stabilize ssRNA, which
will not only provide new opportunities to utilize the large number
of currently available, yet rarely explored, RNA FNAs for bioanalysis
but also offer a new solution to protect important ssRNA molecules,
such as microRNA and antisense ssRNA, for a great variety of biomedical
applications