Investigating thermodynamic stability of a molecular beacon for the detection of exosomal miRNA involved in breast cancer

Statistics show breast cancer is the most common cancer worldwide among women. The Percentage of people suffering from breast cancer has drawn attention of researchers to diagnose and prognose this disease. There is a strong correlation between special miRNAs and cancer. Although there are numerous ways for detection of miRNAs such as northern blotting, bioluminescence and RT-PCR but miRNA detection still remains as a major challenge. Alternatively, miRNAs can be detected on solid phase by Lateral Flow assays (LFA) which is a rapid, cheap and user-friendly assay that takes only five to twenty minutes to reveal the result. There are multiple designs with which different analytes could be detected with a LFA. In this research, a molecular beacon complementary to miRNA is designed for exosomal miRNA detection. The core idea behind this examination is that with the presence of miRNA the molecular beacon would lose its G-quadruplex conformation but in the absence of miRNA it would be in a G-quadruplex conformation. This would produce color with an appropriate substrate. The thermodynamic stability of molecular beacons is calculated in the presence of various conditions.

Keywords:

miRNA , Breast cancer , Lateral flow assay , Molecular beacon , Thermodynamic stability.