AND Logic Gate-Regulated DNAzyme Nanoflower for Monitoring the Activity of Multiple DNA Repair Enzymes

Despite the progress that has been made in diverse DNA-based nanodevices to in situ monitor the activity of the DNA repair enzymes in living cells, the significance of improving both the sensitivity and specificity has remained largely neglected and understudied. Herein, we propose a regulatable DNA nanodevice to specifically monitor the activity of DNA repair enzymes for early evaluation of cancer mediated by genomic instability. Concretely, an AND logic gate-regulated DNAzyme nanoflower was rationally designed by the self-assembly of the DNA duplex modified with both apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) site and methyl lesion site. The DNAzyme nanoflower could be reconfigured under the repair of AP sites and O6-methylguanine sites by apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease 1 (APE1) and O6-methylguanine methyltransferase (MGMT) to produce a fluorescent signal, realizing the sensitive monitoring of the activity of APE1 and MGMT. Compared to the free DNAzyme duplex, the fluorescent response of the DNAzyme nanoflower increased by 60%, due to the effective enrichment of the DNA probes by the nanoflower structure. More importantly, we have demonstrated that the dual-enzyme activated strategy allows imaging of specific cancer cells in the AND logic gate manner using MCF-7 as a cancer cell model, improving the specificity of cancer cell imaging. This AND logic gate-regulated multifunctional DNAzyme nanoflower provides a simple tool for simultaneously visualizing multiple DNA repair enzymes, holding great potential in early clinical diagnosis and drug discovery.