Enzyme-free visualization of nucleic acids during HIV infection by octopus-like DNA

Jia Kong¹, Yuefei Wang², Wei Qi³, Rongxin Su³, Zhimin He¹

State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, PR China..

Abstract

It is highly desirable to develop a facile approach for the detection of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). To address this need, an octopus-like DNA (OLD) is designed in a one-pot method by direct folding of nine short single strands of DNA (ssDNA), which can be used to capture all the conserved HIV-1 gene efficiently though the sticky arms. The branched OLD was applied for the enzyme-free detection of HIV-1 nucleic acid and the visualization of the virus during HIV infection. The total detection procedure can be finished within 2 h with high specificity, making the OLD system a valuable tool for the rapid detection of HIV virus and further biomedical application.

Keywords: Branched DNA, Enzyme-free, HIV detection.