Isothermal sensitive detection of microRNA using an autonomous DNA machine recycling output as input

An autonomous DNA machine recycling the output as the input for isothermal, sensitive, and specific detection of miRNAs has been developed. This machine shows considerably high signal amplification efficiency (～1000-fold) and thus a low detection limit (～20 amol). The machine also shows high specificity, discriminating 50 amol of synthetic miRNA from 100-fold larger amounts of its family member and from 100 ng of unrelated total RNAs. Moreover, it is available for practically detecting natural miRNAs in total RNAs.