Development of Toehold Switch Sensor
Usually, the genetic circuit of a biosensor is divided into three parts: a receptor that recognizes external signals and converts them into transcriptional signals, a computational module that integrates and processes the transcriptional signals, and an outputter that outputs physiological signals. Currently, the development of synthetic biology has brought changes in the field of biosensors, and biosensors with cell-free systems are gaining more and more attention. Such biosensors can function outside the organism and have the advantage of being more convenient and faster. toehold switch has been applied to biosensors as an RNA element that can manipulate gene expression. CD BioSciences, as a first-class biotechnology company, is committed to providing you with toehold switch sensor development services.
Our Service
To accelerate the development of biological and medical assays and to explore more applications of toehold switch, we use toehold switch to construct sensing plasmids. This plasmid does not require a marker and the constructed plasmid is capable of detecting other RNA sequences without restriction. In this service, we first design the toehold switch to connect to the reporter gene based on the sequence of the target to be detected and then use the constructed toehold switch to construct the sensing plasmid. The sensing plasmid is present in the gene circuit and is part of the sensor. When there is no trigger RNA, the toehold switch is not opened and the reporter gene cannot be translated, so there is no signal output. When the trigger RNA is present, the toehold switch opens, the reporter gene is translated, a current is generated, and a signal is an output.
Our toehold switch sensor development service takes into account the purpose of the assay, the target, the design, optimization, and synthesis of the toehold switch, the selection of the plasmid, the selection of the transforming enzyme, the sensor vector, etc. We offer four main steps in this service:
1. Signal amplification. We use nucleic acid sequence-based amplification to generate single-stranded RNA amplicons, which are used to isothermally amplify the signal and give the sensor a high sensitivity.
2. Sensing plasmid construction. In this step, we need to construct a sensing plasmid containing toehold switch RNA and reporter genes.
3. Signal transduction. Hybridization of single-stranded RNA amplicons with toehold switch RNA. In this step, it is important to ensure that the ribosome can bind stably to the ribosome binding site after recognition of the detection RNA to enable the expression of the reporter gene.
4. Signal output. In this step, the expression of the reporter gene causes the sensor to generate a current through some reactions, thus outputting the detection signa
Targets We Can Detect
- Bacteria
- Viruses
- Biomarkers
- Drug resistance genes, etc.
Our Advantages
- Label-free nucleic acid vectors
- Ability to detect a wide range of species
- More stable detection capability
- Reusable, saving reagents and costs
- Easy to use and operator friendly
- Portable and does not require a rigorous laboratory environment
Applications
- Pathogen detection test development
- Disease early diagnosis test development
We Are Ready to Provide
CD BioSciences is committed to providing you with a customized toehold switch sensor development service. This service has many advantages such as easy operation and portability, and can fully meet your research needs. If you are interested in our toehold switch sensor development service, please feel free to contact us.
Reference
- Tang, Y.; et al. Homogeneous and universal transduction of various nucleic acids to an off-shelf device based on programmable toehold switch sensing. Chem Commun (Camb). 2020, 56(16): 2483-2486.