智能DNA水凝胶在生化分析中的应用

Smart DNA hydrogels for biosensing applications

作为一种新型的生物大分子软材料, DNA水凝胶近年来成为国内外多学科交叉研究的热点领域之一.基于DNA材料具有可编码性和功能单元丰富的特点,通过合理的序列设计以及多样化的修饰,可以在水凝胶中引入对不同类型刺激特异性响应的功能DNA结构和催化性DNA结构,从而得到具有多种功能的智能DNA水凝胶.这类材料可以在特定外界刺激下发生特异的响应性变化,材料组装具有高精准度的可控性,可满足分子识别、信号转换与放大、可控释放等诸多方面的应用需要,并具有良好的生物相容性和可降解性等优点,在生物医学特别是生化分析中具有重要的应用前景.本文总结了不同类型的智能DNA水凝胶以及其在生化分析方面的典型应用,并对该领域当前重要问题与未来前景进行了讨论与展望.

As a novel kind of biomacromolecular soft material, DNA hydrogel has become one of the hot topics in multidisciplinary researches. Taking advantages of the programmability and abundant functional motifs of DNA based materials, smart DNA hydrogels can be developed with high precision and controllability through reasonable sequence designs and post-modifications. By encoding with different functional DNA structures, such as the molecularrecognition DNA structures and the catalytic DNA structures, smart DNA hydrogel can perform different functions,such as the target-responsive and signal-amplification functions. DNA hydrogels also exhibit good biocompatibility and degradability. Therefore, smart DNA hydrogels hold great promise in biomedical applications, especially in biosensing.In this mini-review, we discuss the different types of smart DNA hydrogels and summarize their biosensing applications.The development prospect of smart DNA hydrogels is also discussed.