Homogeneous and universal transduction of various nucleic acids to an off-shelf device based on programmable toehold switch sensing

Abstract

Through a rational construction of an RNA toehold switch sensor, the glucometer-based detection of nucleic acids was innovatively simplified into a completely homogeneous and label-free process. Compared with traditional strategies that rely on multiple operations such as chemical conjugation and bead separation, this new strategy is more robust, user-friendly, reagent-saving, and reproducible, and can be universally adapted for use on extensive target species, e.g. herein, the real-world pathogen genes.