@article{canoura_liu_perry_willis_xiao_2023, title={Suite of Aptamer-Based Sensors for the Detection of Fentanyl and Its Analogues}, volume={4}, ISSN={["2379-3694"]}, DOI={10.1021/acssensors.2c02463}, abstractNote={Fentanyl and its analogues are potent synthetic opioids that are commonly abused and are currently the number one cause of drug overdose death in the United States. The ability to detect fentanyl with simple, rapid, and low-cost tools is crucial for forensics, medical care, and public safety. Conventional on-site testing options for fentanyl detection─including chemical spot tests, lateral-flow immunoassays, and portable Raman spectrometers─each have their own unique flaws that limit their analytical utility. Here, we have developed a series of new aptamer-based assays and sensors that can detect fentanyl as well as several of its analogues in a reliable, accurate, rapid, and economic manner. These include colorimetric, fluorescent, and electrochemical sensors, which can detect and quantify minute quantities of fentanyl and many of its analogues with no response to other illicit drugs, cutting agents, or adulterants─even in interferent-ridden binary mixtures containing as little as 1% fentanyl. Given the high performance of these novel analytical tools, we foresee the potential for routine use by medical and law enforcement personnel as well as the general public to aid in rapid and accurate fentanyl identification.}, journal={ACS SENSORS}, author={Canoura, Juan and Liu, Yingzhu and Perry, Jacob and Willis, Connor and Xiao, Yi}, year={2023}, month={Apr} }
 @article{canoura_alkhamis_liu_willis_xiao_2022, title={High-throughput quantitative binding analysis of DNA aptamers using exonucleases}, volume={12}, ISSN={["1362-4962"]}, DOI={10.1093/nar/gkac1210}, abstractNote={Abstract}, journal={NUCLEIC ACIDS RESEARCH}, author={Canoura, Juan and Alkhamis, Obtin and Liu, Yingzhu and Willis, Connor and Xiao, Yi}, year={2022}, month={Dec} }
 @article{jin_liu_alkhamis_canoura_bacon_xu_fu_xiao_2022, title={Near-Infrared Dye-Aptamer Assay for Small Molecule Detection in Complex Specimens}, volume={7}, ISSN={["1520-6882"]}, DOI={10.1021/acs.analchem.2c01095}, abstractNote={Aptamers are single-stranded oligonucleotides isolated in vitro that bind specific targets with high affinity and are commonly used as receptors in biosensors. Aptamer-based dye-displacement assays are a promising sensing platform because they are label-free, sensitive, simple, and rapid. However, these assays can exhibit impaired sensitivity in biospecimens, which contain numerous interferents that cause unwanted absorbance, scattering, and fluorescence in the UV-vis region. Here, this problem is overcome by utilizing near-infrared (NIR) signatures of the dye 3,3'-diethylthiadicarbocyanine iodide (Cy5). Cy5 initially complexes with aptamers as monomers and dimers; aptamer-target binding displaces the dye into solution, resulting in the formation of J-aggregates that provide a detectable NIR signal. The generality of our assay is demonstrated by detecting three different small-molecule analytes with their respective DNA aptamers at clinically relevant concentrations in serum and urine. These successful demonstrations show the utility of dye-aptamer NIR biosensors for high-throughput detection of analytes in clinical specimens.}, journal={ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY}, author={Jin, Xin and Liu, Yingzhu and Alkhamis, Obtin and Canoura, Juan and Bacon, Adara and Xu, Ruyi and Fu, Fengfu and Xiao, Yi}, year={2022}, month={Jul} }