Revealing an initiation inhibition of RCA and its application in nucleic acid detection.

Rolling circle amplification is a widely used biosensing technique. Although various secondary structures have been employed in RCA, their effects on RCA efficiency have seldom been reported. Here, we find that stems in circular templates can strongly inhibit RCA, and the primer-stem distance is responsible for the inhibition.

A Strategy Employing a TF-Splinting Duplex Nanoswitch to Achieve Single-Step, Enzyme-Free, Signal-On Detection of l-Tryptophan.

Transcription factor (TF)-based metabolite detection mainly depends on TF-regulated gene expression in cells. From TF activation to gene transcription and translation, the signal travels a relatively long way before it is received. Here, we propose a TF-splinting duplex DNA nanoswitch to detect metabolites.