Abstract
Telomerase activity detection and in situ imaging are very important for cancer early diagnosis and treatment. In this work, a novel nano-beacon (QD-BHQ2) is constructed by a simple method without excessive chemical modification; and the developed technology with no signal amplification can be used for sensitive and visual detection of telomerase activity in vitro and in living cells. The CdTe:Zn2+ QDs are modified by a hairpin BHQ2-DNA, and the fluorescence signals are recovered through hybridization between hairpin DNA and telomerase reaction products, which was achieved by incubation of telomerase primer (TS primer), dNTPs, and telomerase extract. This facile method for telomerase activity detection has the linear range from 10 to 600 HeLa cells and the detection limit was 1 cell. With lots of advantages, such as photo-stability, biocompatibility, and specificity, the constructed QD-BHQ2 will be a promising platform for nucleic acid detection and living cell imaging.
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