A Target-Lighted dsDNA-Indicator for High-Performance Monitoring of Mercury Pollution and Its Antagonists Screening

As well-known, the excessive discharge of heavy-metal mercury not only destroys the ecological environment, bust also leads to severe damage of human health after ingestion via drinking and bioaccumulation of food chains, and mercury ion (Hg2+) is designated as one of most prevalent toxic metal ions in drinking water. Thus, the high-performance monitoring of mercury pollution is necessary. Functional nucleic acids have been widely used as recognition probes in biochemical sensing. In this work, a carbazole derivative, ethyl-4-[3,6-bis(1-methyl-4-vinylpyridium iodine)-9H-carbazol −9-yl)] butanoate (EBCB), has been synthesized and found as a target-lighted DNA fluorescent indicator. As a proof-of-concept, Hg2+ detection was carried out based on EBCB and Hg2+-mediated conformation transformation of a designed DNA probe. By comparison with conventional nucleic acid indicators, EBCB held excellent advantages, such as minimal background interference and maximal sensitivity. Outstanding detection capabilities we...