A novel "light-up" sensor for human 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase activity assay was developed.

The work mainly relies on target-induced formation of 5′ phosphorylated probe and autocatalytic DNAzyme-generated rolling circle amplification strategy.

The assay exhibited a low detection limit of 0.001 U/mL for hOGG1.

The strategy showed excellent specificity over other nonspecific enzymes and good analytical performance in complex biological media.