Engineering a Ligase Binding DNA Aptamer into a Templating DNA Scaffold to Guide the Selective Synthesis of Circular DNAzymes and DNA Aptamers

Functional nucleic acids (FNAs), such as DNAzymes and DNA aptamers, can be engineered into circular forms for improved performance. Circular FNAs are promising candidates for bioanalytical and biomedical applications due to their intriguing properties of enhanced biological stability and compatibility with rolling circle amplification. They are typically made from linear single-stranded (ss) DNA molecules via ligase-mediated ligation. However, it remains a great challenge to synthesize circular ssDNA molecules in high yield due to inherent side reactions where two or more of the same ssDNA molecules are ligated. Herein, we present a strategy to overcome this issue by first using in vitro selection to search from a random-sequence DNA library a ligatable DNA aptamer that binds a DNA ligase and then by engineering this aptamer into a general-purpose templating DNA scaffold to guide the ligase to execute selective intramolecular circularization. We demonstrate the broad utility of this approach via the creation of several species of circular DNA molecules, including a circular DNAzyme sensor for a bacterium and a circular DNA aptamer sensor for a protein target with excellent detection sensitivity and specificity.