The signal amplification and single-base discrimination ability of DSN were well combined with the high SERS performance of the Fe3O4@Ag.
MiRNA let-7b was captured, concentrated and quantified from RNAt of cancer cells within a PE tube with a detection limit of 0.3 fM, nearly 3 orders of magnitude lower than fluorescence based DSN biosensor for miRNA.
The result provides a proposal to apply metal complex magnetic microsphere as novel platform to combine miRNAs capture, concentration and single-base level SERS detection in one step.