Antibody-responsive DNA templates for ultrasensitive immunoassays

The development of synthetic genetic circuits or templates that respond to specific targets and trigger cell-free transcription of RNA signalling strands or translation of reporter proteins has recently led to analytical devices with excellent sensitivity and specificity. Despite advances in this field, the examples of cell-free nucleic acid sensors reported to date have only been demonstrated for a limited number of targets.

In this talk, I will present several cell-free sensor platforms that enable sensitive and specific detection of antibodies and antigens directly in complex sample matrices. The approaches I propose combine the unique programmability and responsiveness of DNA-based systems with the specificity and sensitivity offered by in vitro genetic circuits and commercially available transcription kits. With these approaches, we significantly expand the scope and applicability of cell-free sensor platforms to potentially enable the measurement of any molecular target for which an antibody is available.