A DNA walker based on hairpin-shaped DNA aligner and fueled by nicking endonuclease for sensitive and rapid miRNA analysis.

Background: DNA walker-based strategies have gained significant attention in nucleic acid analysis. However, they face challenges related to balancing design complexity, sequence dependence, and amplification efficiency. Furthermore, most existing DNA walkers rely on walking and lock probes, requiring optimization of various parameters like DNA probe sequence, walking-to-lock probe ratio, lock probe length, etc.