Highly sensitive and selective strategy for microRNA detection based on WS2 nanosheet mediated fluorescence quenching and duplex-specific nuclease signal amplification.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play vital roles in physiologic and pathologic processes and are significant biomarkers for disease diagnostics and therapeutics. However, rapid, low-cost, sensitive, and selective detection of miRNAs remains a challenge because of their short length, sequence homology, and low abundance. Herein, we report for the first time that WS2 nanosheet can exhibit differential affinity toward short oligonucleotide fragment versus ssDNA probe and act as an efficient quencher for adsorbed fluorescent probes. This finding is utilized to develop a new strategy for simple, sensitive, and selective detection of miRNA by combining WS2 nanosheet based fluorescence quenching with duplex-specific nuclease signal amplification (DSNSA). This assay exhibits highly sensitive and selective with a detection limit of 300 fM and even discriminate single-base difference between the miRNA family members. The result indicates that this simple and cost-effective strategy holds great potential application in biomedical research and clinical diagnostics.