Bioinspired DNA–Inorganic Hybrid Nanoflowers Combined with a Personal Glucose Meter for Onsite Detection of miRNA

Biomineralization is an important process in nature, by which living organisms participate in producing organic/inorganic hybrid materials and the resultant materials show sophisticated structures and excellent physical and chemical properties. Inspired by biomineralization, DNA–Cu3(PO4)2 hybrid nanoflowers (HNFs) were prepared, which exhibited high stability, a high surface-to-volume ratio, and good DNA encapsulation ability. A facile thread platform for microRNA (miRNA) detection was fabricated by employing DNA–Cu3(PO4)2 HNFs as captors, and the signal could be easily read out by a personal glucose meter. The fabricated biosensor could detect miRNA-21 quantitatively and a detection limit of 0.41 nM was achieved. Furthermore, miRNA in A549 cell lysate could also be detected without pretreatment. In this work, we achieved a fast, simple, low-cost method based on the bioinspired DNA–inorganic HNFs for the specific and sensitive detection of miRNA in both aqueous solution and biological samples, indicating its great promise in biomedical and clinical applications.