Tailed molecular beacon probes: an approach for the detection of structured DNA and RNA analytes

Brittany L Mueller; Tatiana A Molden; Jordan Hammock; Dmitry M Kolpashchikov

doi:10.1039/d4cc05984k

Tailed molecular beacon probes: an approach for the detection of structured DNA and RNA analytes

Chem Commun (Camb). 2025 Jan 10. doi: 10.1039/d4cc05984k. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Brittany L Mueller¹, Tatiana A Molden¹, Jordan Hammock¹, Dmitry M Kolpashchikov^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Chemistry Department, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816, USA. [email protected].
² National Center for Forensic Science University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816, USA.
³ Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816, USA.

PMID: 39792394
DOI: 10.1039/d4cc05984k

Abstract

Molecular beacon (MB) probes have been extensively used for nucleic acid analysis. However, MB probes fail to hybridize with folded DNA or RNA. Here, we demonstrate that MB probes equipped with extra sequences complementary to the analyte, named 'tail', can increase the signal-to-background ratio by ∼40-fold and hybridization rates by ∼800-fold compared to conventional MB probes. Tailed MB probes can be used as mismatched-tolerant alternatives to traditional hairpin probes for fast assays.