Rolling Circle Amplification-Based Biosensors

Rolling circle amplification is an isothermal method for amplifying DNA. The technique rapidly synthesizes a long (more than 1000 bases), linear, tandemly-repetitive single-stranded DNA chain by a short (less than 100 bases long) circular template. The reaction may proceed in either linear or exponential amplification modes and may provide copies of the circle up to 10(4)-fold. The robustness, speed, and sensitivity of the rolling circle amplification strategies have gained widespread application in DNA and protein assays, single nucleotide polymorphism, in situ signal amplification, drug discovery, and nanotechnology.