{"doi":"10.1038/s42004-024-01124-3","title":"Sequestration within peptide coacervates improves the fluorescence intensity, kinetics, and limits of detection of dye-based DNA biosensors","abstract":"Abstract Peptide-based liquid-liquid phase separated domains, or coacervates, are a biomaterial gaining new interest due to their exciting potential in fields ranging from biosensing to drug delivery. In this study, we demonstrate that coacervates provide a simple and biocompatible medium to improve nucleic acid biosensors through the sequestration of both the biosensor and target strands within the coacervate, thereby increasing their local concentration. Using the well-established polyarginine (R 9 ) – ATP coacervate system and an energy transfer-based DNA molecular beacon we observed three key improvements: i) a greater than 20-fold reduction of the limit of detection within coacervates when compared to control buffer solutions; ii) an increase in the kinetics, equilibrium was reached more than 4-times faster in coacervates; and iii) enhancement in the dye fluorescent quantum yields within the coacervates, resulting in greater signal-to-noise. The observed benefits translate into coacervates greatly improving bioassay functionality.","journal":"Communications Chemistry","year":2024,"id":422480,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":26,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.95,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1216167,"name":"Deborah Sementa","orcid":"0009-0007-6338-7598","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":885877,"name":"Divita Mathur","orcid":"0000-0002-3537-7292","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":889447,"name":"Joseph S. Melinger","orcid":"0000-0002-2452-5245","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1216758,"name":"Priyasha Deshpande","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":233300,"name":"Shana Elbaum‐Garfinkle","orcid":"0000-0002-3953-7329","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":885880,"name":"Igor L. Medintz","orcid":"0000-0002-8902-4687","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":445585,"name":"Rein V. Ulijn","orcid":"0000-0002-7138-1213","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":885879,"name":"Sebastián A. Dı́az","orcid":"0000-0002-5568-0512","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":885875,"name":"Christopher M. Green","orcid":"0000-0001-7848-7144","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":45,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:57:46.393290Z","pmid":"38424154","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}