Recent progress in PNA-based biosensing technology

Abstract

<p indent="0mm">Peptide nucleic acid (PNA) is a synthetic oligonucleotide analog composed of nucleobases arrayed along a pseudopeptide backbone. It can integrate the power of nucleic acids to encode information with the versatility of amino acids to encode structure and function. PNA has high affinity and specificity for hybridizing with complementary nucleic acid sequences, leading to stable PNA-DNA or PNA-RNA duplex structures. PNA is expected to overcome the limitations of nucleic acids including low stability and specificity in biomedical applications. In this review, we firstly give a brief introduction to the unique properties of PNA and its biomedical applications. Next, we describe and highlight the recent progress in biosensing applications of PNA and DNA integration. Lastly, the future prospects and challenges are discussed.