Reversible Modulation of Aptamer-Ligand Binding in RNA Light-Up Aptamers Containing G-Quadruplex Using Chemical Stimuli.

Regulating a system in equilibrium transiently to out-of-equilibrium by using certain stimuli is the strategy used by natural biomolecules to function. Herein, we showed that the interaction of synthetic RNA aptamers, having a G-quadruplex core structure, with their corresponding ligands could be regulated from their equilibrium state to non-equilibrium state in a reversible manner using simple chemical stimuli (Ag and cysteine). The approach would be useful for designing aptamer regulators that work in a dynamic nucleic acid network, where a strict control on aptamer-ligand interaction is needed.

A highly efficient Baby Spinach-based minimal modified sensor (BSMS) for nucleic acid analysis.

Molecular recognition between nucleic acids has proven to be a powerful tool for designing hybridization probes for the detection of DNA and RNA sequences. Most detection probes rely on the conjugation of small molecule dyes to nucleic acids for fluorescence output, which is not cost-effective and also limits their applications in vivo, as they are not genetically encodable. More affordable sensors devoid of any chemical labeling are needed that show high fluorescence output and are genetically encodable.