Systematic mapping of DNAzymes research from 1995 to 2019

Abstract

DNAzymes (catalytic DNA) have gained significant diagnostic and therapeutic applications with increasing research output over the years. Functional oligonucleotides are used as molecular recognition elements within biosensors for detection of analytes and viral infections such as SARS-CoV-2. DNAzymes are also applied for silencing and regulating cancer specific genes. However, there has not been any report on systematic analysis to track research status, reveal hotspots, and map knowledge in this field. Therefore, in the present study, research articles on DNAzymes from 1995 to 2019 were extracted from Web of Science (SCI-Expanded) after which, 1037 articles were imported into Rstudio (version 3.6.2) and analysed accordingly. The highest number of articles was published in 2019 (n = 138), while the least was in 1995 (n = 1). The articles were published across 216 journals by 2344 authors with 2337 multi-author and 7 single authors. The most prolific authors were Li Y (n = 47), Liu J (n = 46), Wang L (n = 33), Willner I (n = 33) and Zhang L (n = 33). The top three most productive countries were China (n = 2018), USA (n = 447) and Canada (n = 251). The most productive institutions were Hunan University, China (n = 141), University of Illinois, USA (n = 139) and Fuzhou University, China (n = 101). Despite the increasing interest in this field, international collaborations between institutions were very low which requires immediate attention to mitigate challenges such as limited funding, access to facilities, and existing knowledge gap.

Keywords:

• DNAzymes
• oligonucleotides
• in vitro
• chemiluminescence
• bibliometrix

Author contribution statement

Adeoye Raphael and Okaiyeto Kunle conceptualised the study; Okaiyeto Kunle carried out the data collection and analysis; Adeoye Raphael wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Oguntibeju OO supervised the study; Okaiyeto Kunle, Igunnu Adedoyin and Oguntibeju OO proofread the manuscript and all authors approved the manuscript for submission.

Competing interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.