A single repressor for multi-purpose biosensing applications through regulating various types of catalytic reaction strategies

• Published in: Sensors and actuators. B, Chemical Chemical, 2023-08, Vol.389, p.133895, Article 133895
• Main Authors: Yu, Xiaodong, Chai, Jing, Zhuang, Qian, Duan, Xuying, Xiao, Chen, He, Shiyin, Tang, Suming, Zhao, Guojie
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Galactose; Inhibitor; Isothermal amplification; Lactose; Repressor; Restriction endonuclease
• ISSN: 0925-4005; 1873-3077
• DOI: 10.1016/j.snb.2023.133895

Repressors can be used as signal switch to develop useful biosensors for metabolite detections. Whether different DNA reactions can be regulated by a single repressor to achieve various biosensing purposes has remained to be explored. Here, we used GalR (Gal repressor) as a model to verify its ability to control six DNA reactions, and chose SDA (strand displacement amplification) and RE (restriction endonuclease) reactions to achieve three biosensing purposes. Firstly, both SDA and RE reactions regulated by GalR can detect D-galactose effectively. Secondly, lactase was successfully employed to expand the platforms for lactose detecting. Thirdly, we used these platforms to achieve inhibitor screening. Our results demonstrated that a single repressor has the potential to effectively regulate different catalytic reactions and to be fully exploited for various biosensing purposes. •GalR can regulate up to six different DNA reactions for signal output.•Achieving three saccharides detection and inhibitor screening by single GalR.•Novel methods for galactose and lactose etc. detections were proposed.•New inhibitors were revealed to suggest novel regulatory mechanism of gal operon.