A new label-free and turn-on strategy for endonuclease detection using a DNA-silver nanocluster probe.

Endonuclease plays a vital role in a variety of biological processes and the assay of endonuclease activity and inhibitors is of high importance in the fields ranging from biotechnology to pharmacology. Howerer, traditional techniques usually suffer from time intensive, laborious, and cost-expensive. This work aims to develop a facile and sensitive method for endonuclease activity assay by making use of the fluorescence enhancement effect when DNA-silver nanoclusters (DNA-Ag NCs) are in proximity to guanine-rich DNA sequences.