A dumbell probe-mediated rolling circle amplification strategy for highly sensitive transcription factor detection

Highly sensitive detection of transcription factors (TF) is essential to proteome and genomics research as well as clinical diagnosis. We describe herein a novel fluorescent-amplified strategy for ultrasensitive, quantitative, and inexpensive detection of TF. The strategy consists of a hairpin DNA probe containing a TF binding sequence for target TF, a dumbbell-shaped probe, a primer DNA probe designed partly complementary to hairpin DNA probe, and a dumbbell probe. In the presence of target TF, the binding of the TF with hairpin DNA probe will prohibit the hybridization of the primer DNA probe with the “stem” and “loop” region of the hairpin DNA probe, then the unhybridized region of the primer DNA will hybridize with dumbbell probe, subsequently promote the ligation reaction and the rolling circle amplification (RCA), finally, the RCA products are quantified via the fluorescent intensity of SYBR Green I (SG). Using TATA-binding protein (TBP) as a model transcription factor, the proposed assay system can specifically detect TBP with a detection limit as low as 40.7 fM, and with a linear range from 100 fM to 1 nM. Moreover, this assay related DNA probe does not involve any modification and the whole assay proceeds in one tube, which makes the assay simple and low cost. It is expected to become a powerful tool for bioanalysis and clinic diagnostic application.