Electrogenerated chemiluminescence biosensing method for the detection of DNA methylation and assay of the methyltransferase activity

A novel electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) biosensing method for highly sensitive detection of DNA methylation and assay of the CpG methyltransferase (M. SssI) activity was developed on basis of enzyme-linkage reactions and ruthenium complex served as an ECL tag. The ECL biosensing electrode was fabricated by self-assembling 5′-thiol modified 32-mer single-strand DNA (ss-DNA)-tagged with ruthenium bis (2,2′-bipyridine) (2,2′-bipyridine-4,4′-dicarboxylic acid)-ethylenediamine on the surface of a gold electrode, and then hybridized with complementary ss-DNA to form duplex DNA (ds-DNA). When M. SssI and S-adenosylmethionine were introduced, all cytosine residues within 5′–CG-3′ of ds-DNA on the biosensing electrode were methylated. After the methylated biosensing electrode was treated by HpaII endonuclease, the un-methylated cytosines were cleaved, thus led to decrease ECL signal. The ECL intensity of ECL biosensing electrode is related to the methylation level and M. SssI activity in a fixed concentration HpaII endonuclease. The increased ECL intensity was direct proportion to M. SssI activity in the range from 0.05 to 100 U/mL with a detection limit of 0.02 U/mL. This work demonstrates that the combination of the enzyme-linkage reactions with a highly sensitive ECL technique is a great promising approach for the detection of DNA methylation level, assay of the activity of MTase, and evaluation of the capability of inhibitors for the methyltransferase.

► A novel ECL biosensing method for highly sensitive detection of DNA methylation and assay of the methyltransferase activity was developed.
► The ECL biosensing method is based on enzyme-linkage reactions and ruthenium complex served as an ECL label.
► Compared with the traditional method, the ECL biosensing method is PCR-free, nonradioactive, simple and sensitive, achieved a lower detection limit of 0.02 U/mL.