We have designed programmable DNA-based nanoswitches whose closing/opening can be triggered over specific different pH windows. These nanoswitches form an intramolecular triplex DNA structure through pH-sensitive parallel Hoogsteen interactions. We demonstrate that by simply changing the relative content of TAT/CGC triplets in the switches, we can rationally tune their pH dependence over more t...

Acidic pH inside cells indicates cellular dysfunctions such as cancer. Therefore, the development of optical pH sensors for measuring and imaging intracellular pH is a demanding challenge. The available pH-sensitive probes are vulnerable to e.g. photobleaching or autofluorescence background in biological materials. Our approach circumvents these problems due to near infrared excitation and upco...

The real-time sensing of metal ions at point of care requires integrated sensors with low energy and sample consumption, reversibility, and rapid recovery. Here, we report a photonic nanosensor that reversibly and quantitatively reports on variation in the concentrations of Pb(2+) and Cu(2+) ions in aqueous solutions (<500 μL) in the visible region of the spectrum (λ(max) ≈ 400-700 nm). A singl...