Abstract
Environmental contaminants are a global concern, and an effective strategy for remediation is to develop a rapid, on-site, and affordable monitoring method. However, this remains challenging, especially with regard to the detection of various contaminants in complex water environments. The application of molecular methods has recently attracted increasing attention; for example, rolling circle amplification (RCA) is an isothermal enzymatic process in which a short nucleic acid primer is amplified to form a long single-stranded nucleic acid using a circular template and special nucleic acid polymerases. Furthermore, this approach can be further engineered into a device for point-of-need monitoring of environmental pollutants. In this paper, we describe the fundamental principles of RCA and the advantages and disadvantages of RCA assays. Then, we discuss the recently developed RCA-based tools for environmental analysis to determine various targets, including heavy metals, organic small molecules, nucleic acids, peptides, proteins, and even microorganisms in aqueous environments. Finally, we summarize the challenges and outline strategies for the advancement of this technique for application in contaminant monitoring.
Highlights
Most of these strategies are based on laboratory platforms, such as inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for the detection of heavy metal ions, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS) for the detection of small organic chemicals or their metabolites, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the detection of nucleic acids and genetic information, which require preprocessing and frequent data sampling, which means that they are both expensive and slow
There are still some shortcomings in the development of the rolling circle amplification (RCA) method: (1) the padlock probe is often close to 100 bp, and the synthesis cost is relatively high; (2) background interference is a problem during signal detection
After a simple and logical operation, the results show that the detection limit of HRCA-based strip test (HBST) detection is 1 copy μL−1 of the Pseudomonas marina large subunit (LSU) ribosomal DNA (rDNA) plasmid, which is the most prominent
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. The variable composition of pollutants and their location in aqueous environments over time have resulted in increasing focus on new technologies that use cheap and real-time strategies to monitor pollutants Most of these strategies are based on laboratory platforms, such as inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for the detection of heavy metal ions, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS) for the detection of small organic chemicals or their metabolites, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the detection of nucleic acids and genetic information, which require preprocessing and frequent data sampling, which means that they are both expensive and slow. The contents of this paper are summarized, and the application prospects of RCA-based analytical methods in environmental monitoring are discussed
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