{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,11]],"date-time":"2026-05-11T15:33:00Z","timestamp":1778513580943,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":43,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"7","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,5]],"date-time":"2024-04-05T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1712275200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","award":["22176075"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["22176075"]}]},{"name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","award":["21876067"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["21876067"]}]},{"name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","award":["SJCX21_1678"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["SJCX21_1678"]}]},{"name":"Graduate Research and Innovation Projects of Jiangsu Province","award":["22176075"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["22176075"]}]},{"name":"Graduate Research and Innovation Projects of Jiangsu Province","award":["21876067"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["21876067"]}]},{"name":"Graduate Research and Innovation Projects of Jiangsu Province","award":["SJCX21_1678"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["SJCX21_1678"]}]},{"name":"Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Technology and Material of Water Treatment","award":["22176075"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["22176075"]}]},{"name":"Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Technology and Material of Water Treatment","award":["21876067"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["21876067"]}]},{"name":"Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Technology and Material of Water Treatment","award":["SJCX21_1678"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["SJCX21_1678"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Conventional spherical nucleic acid enzymes (SNAzymes), made with gold nanoparticle (AuNPs) cores and DNA shells, are widely applied in bioanalysis owing to their excellent physicochemical properties. Albeit important, the crowded catalytic units (such as G-quadruplex, G4) on the limited AuNPs surface inevitably influence their catalytic activities. Herin, a hybridization chain reaction (HCR) is employed as a means to expand the quantity and spaces of G4 enzymes for their catalytic ability enhancement. Through systematic investigations, we found that when an incomplete G4 sequence was linked at the sticky ends of the hairpins with split modes (3:1 and 2:2), this would significantly decrease the HCR hybridization capability due to increased steric hindrance. In contrast, the HCR hybridization capability was remarkably enhanced after the complete G4 sequence was directly modified at the non-sticky end of the hairpins, ascribed to the steric hindrance avoided. Accordingly, the improved SNAzymes using HCR were applied for the determination of AFB1 in food samples as a proof-of-concept, which exhibited outstanding performance (detection limit, 0.08 ng\/mL). Importantly, our strategy provided a new insight for the catalytic activity improvement in SNAzymes using G4 as a signaling molecule.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s24072325","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,8]],"date-time":"2024-04-08T06:04:58Z","timestamp":1712556298000},"page":"2325","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["Improved Catalytic Activity of Spherical Nucleic Acid Enzymes by Hybridization Chain Reaction and Its Application for Sensitive Analysis of Aflatoxin B1"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"24","author":[{"given":"Wenjun","family":"Wang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xuesong","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Kun","family":"Zeng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yanyan","family":"Lu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Boyuan","family":"Jia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jianxia","family":"Lv","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"National Narcotics Laboratory Beijing Regional Center, Beijing 100164, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Chenghao","family":"Wu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"National Narcotics Laboratory Beijing Regional Center, Beijing 100164, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xinyu","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xinshuo","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4926-347X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zhen","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,5]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1376","DOI":"10.1021\/ja209351u","article-title":"Spherical Nucleic Acids","volume":"134","author":"Cutler","year":"2012","journal-title":"J. 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