Modified Molecular Beacon for Detection of Protein and Its Application for Assay of Streptavidin

A molecular beacon is a widely used and well understood probe employed in oligonucleotide assays. The beacon is basically a modified oligonucleotide probe with a special loop-stem structure with a fluorophore and quencher attach-ed on each end. The loop region comprises the oligo-nucleotide probe, which can detect a complementary target nucleic acid. When the beacon binds to a target molecule, the hairpin stem region unwinds and becomes fluorescent.1-3 Recently, molecular beacons have been employed as bio-sensors for understanding biological processes, including real-time detection of PCR reactions, genetic analyses, and in molecular beacon probe array technology.4-8 Although the detection of a single-stranded DNA binding (SSB) protein has been reported, the major targets of molecular beacons have been limited to oligonucleotides.9-1