Intrinsic Electrocatalysis of RNA as a Label‐free and Reagent‐less Tool for Detection of MicroRNAs

Journal: Electroanalysis
Authors: Římanková L., Ostatná V., Bartošík M.
Year: 2019
ISBN: 1040-0397

Abstract

We show for the first time that RNA catalyzes hydrogen evolution reaction at mercury-containing electrodes. We previously showed that DNA is electrocatalytically active, and so we compared heights and potentials of the RNA chronopotentimetric stripping (CPS) peaks with analogous signals of DNA of the same sequence and found out they were very similar. RNA peaks showed differences depending on the RNA base composition. Catalytic nature of CPS peak enabled detection of 25 pM microRNA in electrochemical cell, or 500 pM microRNA in a 5 μL solution drop (corresponding to 2.5 fmole of microRNA). This finding opens the door for simple, label-free and reagent-less analysis of low concentrations of RNA molecules.

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