Tripartite molecular beacons

Tripartite molecular beacons.

Molecular beacons (MBs) are hairpin-like fluorescent DNA probes that have single-mismatch detection capability. Although they are extremely useful for many solution-based nucleic acid detections, MBs are expensive probes for applications that require the use of a large number of different DNA probes due to the high cost and tedious procedures associated with probe synthesis and purification. In...

Inventing Molecular Beacons

Catalytic molecular beacons.

We have constructed catalytic molecular beacons from a hammerhead-type deoxyribozyme by a modular design. The deoxyribozyme was engineered to contain a molecular beacon stem-loop module that, when closed, inhibits the deoxyribozyme module and is complementary to a target oligonucleotide. Binding of target oligonucleotides opens the beacon stem-loop and allosterically activates the deoxyribozyme...

Molecular Beacons in Diagnostics

Recent technical advances have begun to realize the potential of molecular beacons to test for diverse infections in clinical diagnostic laboratories. These include the ability to test for, and quantify, multiple pathogens in the same clinical sample, and to detect antibiotic resistant strains within hours. The design principles of molecular beacons have also spawned a variety of allied technol...

Polyvalent carbocyanine molecular beacons for molecular recognitions.

Polyvalent carboxylate-terminating near-infrared (NIR) carbocyanine molecular beacons were prepared by homologation of reactive carboxyl groups of the beacon with imino diacetic acid. Their conjugation with unprotected d-(+)-glucosamine gave dendritic arrays of the carbohydrate on an inner NIR chromophore core. In vivo evaluation of the dendritic glucosamine constructs shows enhanced uptake in ...