An Elegant Biosensor Molecular Beacon Probe: Challenges and Recent Solutions
Figure 1
Instantaneous hybridization probes. (a) Classical design of molecular beacon (MB) probe [1–3]. Some important features of the probe are (i) the ability to produce instantaneous fluorescent signal; (ii) conformational constraint in the form of a stem loop in the target-unbound state (left); (iii) reversibility of hybridization. (b) Strand displacement probes [7–10]. The quencher-conjugated strand is displaced from the complex with the fluorophore-conjugated DNA by the analyte. (c) Adjacent probes [11–15]. Hybridization of two fluorophore-conjugated DNA probes to the adjacent positions of an analyte results in Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET). The hybridization efficiency is assessed as a difference in donor and acceptor fluorescence.
