An Elegant Biosensor Molecular Beacon Probe: Challenges and Recent Solutions
Figure 4
Examples of loop and stem interferences in MB probe. (a) Loop interference. Complementary loop nucleotides hybridize to each other, thus making folded conformation more stable and less accessible by the target analyte. (b) Stem hybridizes to loop thus separating the fluorophore from the quencher resulting in elevated background signal. (c) Stem nucleotides can partially hybridize to the nucleotides of the targeted analyte. (d) Stem and loop nucleotides bind nonspecific nucleic acids present in a sample. Red lines indicate undesired or undesigned base pairs.
