Regulation of Target-activated CRISPR/Cas12a on Surface Binding of Polymer Dots for Sensitive Electrochemiluminescence DNA Analysis

Polymer dots (Pdots) have emerged as a type of attractive electrochemiluminescence (ECL) emitter. However, the low ECL efficiency severely limits their practicability. In this work, we develop a sensitive ECL biosensing strategy for the detection of human papilloma virus subtype (HPV-16) DNA by using target-activated CRISPR/Cas12a to regulate the binding of Pdots-DNA to biosensor and local surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effect of electrochemically deposited Au nanoparticles (depAuNPs) to enhance the ECL emission of Pdots bound on biosensor. The biosensor is prepared by simply assembling hairpin DNA on depAuNPs modified electrode. In the presence of target DNA, the designed specific CRISPR/Cas12a can be activated to digest single-stranded assistant DNA, which decreases the amount of hairpin DNA opened by assistant DNA to bind Pdots-DNA on the biosensor surface, thus reduces the ECL emission. The integration of target DNA-triggered catalysis and the LSPR effect of depAuNPs greatly improves the sensitivity of ECL analysis. Using HPV-16 DNA as a target model, the proposed method shows a limit of detection (LOD) of 3.2 fM at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3 and a detectable concentration range of 5.0 fM to 50 pM. The high sensitivity, excellent selectivity, good testing stability, and acceptable fabrication reproducibility of the designed ECL biosensing strategy demonstrate its potential application in DNA bioanalysis.