Abstract
Owing to a long-standing research on the electrochemical gene sensor or genosensor, especially by the introduction of new strategies of electrochemical nucleic acid detection in recent years, it is now possible to analyze genes with high sensitivity. Detection of a one-base mismatch is of particular importance from a viewpoint of single nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs. Barton's and our groups developed novel methods of detecting a one-base mismatch which do not rely on a difference in the thermal stability of matched and mismatched duplex DNA. These methods are expected to enable simultaneous analysis of multiple genes with multi-electrodes and are useful for the development of even more sophisticated electrochemical DNA chips. The micro processing technology has been renovating genosensors and it is now possible to immobilize DNA probes in a specific site on such integrated electrodes by the electrochemical method. Electrochemical visualization of ordinary DNA microarrays by means of scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) may open a new vista to develop novel electrochemical DNA chips and related systems.
