Issue 16, 2018

Translating molecular detections into a simple temperature test using a target-responsive smart thermometer

Abstract

While it has been well recognized that affordable and pocket-size devices play a major role in environmental monitoring, food safety and medical diagnostics, it often takes a tremendous amount of resources to develop such devices. Devices that have been developed are often dedicated devices that can detect only one or a few targets. To overcome these limitations, we herein report a novel target-responsive smart thermometer for translating molecular detection into a temperature test. The sensor system consists of a functional DNA–phospholipase A2 (PLA2) enzyme conjugate, a liposome-encapsulated NIR dye, and a thermometer interfaced with a NIR-laser device. The sensing principle is based on the target-induced release of PLA2 from the DNA–enzyme conjugate, which catalyzes the hydrolysis of liposome to release the NIR dye inside the liposome. Upon NIR-laser irradiation, the released dye can convert excitation energy into heat, producing a temperature increase in solution, which is detectable using a thermometer. Considering the low cost and facile incorporation of the system with suitable functional DNAs to recognize many targets, the system demonstrated here makes the thermometer an affordable and pocket-size meter for the detection and quantification of a wide range of targets.

Graphical abstract: Translating molecular detections into a simple temperature test using a target-responsive smart thermometer

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
15 Dec 2017
Accepted
07 Mar 2018
First published
07 Mar 2018
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2018,9, 3906-3910

Translating molecular detections into a simple temperature test using a target-responsive smart thermometer

J. Zhang, H. Xing and Y. Lu, Chem. Sci., 2018, 9, 3906 DOI: 10.1039/C7SC05325H

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements