A SERS and fluorescence dual-channel microfluidic droplet platform for exploring telomerase activity at the single-cell level
Guohua Qi, Xing Du, Xuan Yi, Minmin Wang, Hongyan Zhu, Dan Sun
Abstract
and highly sensitive determination of low-abundance telomerase activity in single cells. In this work, the nanoprobe is composed of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) functionalized by a telomerase primer and signal sequence (a Cy5-labeled DNA strand). The dual-signal switching of the SERS turn-off and fluorescence turn-on mechanisms for the Cy5 response to telomerase allows for the highly sensitive and reliable determination of telomerase at the single-cell level. As a result, the SERS-fluorescence microdroplet platform exhibits an excellent performance for the efficient investigation of cell heterogeneity upon telomerase expression and the dynamic monitoring of variations in intracellular telomerase activity during treatment with a telomerase inhibitor. The proposed platform will help to decipher the heterogeneity of cell populations and is potentially applicable in the clinical diagnosis of diseases related to telomerase activity.