Nucleic Acid i-Motif Structures in Analytical Chemistry

ABSTRACT

Under the appropriate experimental conditions of pH and temperature, cytosine-rich segments in DNA or RNA sequences may produce a characteristic folded structure known as an i-motif. Besides its potential role in vivo, which is still under investigation, this structure has attracted increasing interest in other fields due to its sharp, fast and reversible pH-driven conformational changes. This “on/off” switch at molecular level is being used in nanotechnology and analytical chemistry to develop nanomachines and sensors, respectively. This paper presents a review of the latest applications of this structure in the field of chemical analysis.

KEYWORDS:

• Bioanalytical
• DNA
• electrochemistry
• i-motif
• spectroscopy

Funding

We thank the Spanish government (CTQ2012-38616-C02-02 and CTQ2014-52588-R) for funding and the Catalan government (2014 SGR 1106) for recognition.