Nucleic acids are not only genetic information carriers but also powerful building blocks for signal amplification. Among the amplification strategies based on nucleic acids, entropy-driven circuit (EDC) is considered as a milestone in the field of DNA circuits, which is driven by entropy augmentation of additionally released molecules instead of enthalpy gain of base-pair formation. Apart from nonenzymatic and isothermal features, EDC has the promising advantages of rapidness, simplicity, robustness and modularity. Consequently, a variety of studies related to EDC have been reported over the past decade. However, until now, there is not a symmetric review about EDC in biosensing. Therefore, in this review, we make a comprehensive and in-depth summarization of the mechanism, diversified development of EDC with objective discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of each method, and the applications of EDC-based biosensors. Finally, the challenges and prospects of this rapidly developing area are also presented.

核酸不仅是遗传信息载体，而且还是信号放大的强大构件。在基于核酸的扩增策略中，熵驱动电路（EDC）被认为是DNA电路领域的一个里程碑，它是通过额外释放的分子的熵增强而不是碱基对形成的焓增加来驱动的。除了具有非酶和等温特性外，EDC还具有快速，简便，耐用和模块化的良好优势。因此，在过去的十年中，已经报道了与EDC相关的各种研究。但是，到目前为止，还没有关于生物传感中EDC的对称评论。因此，在这篇综述中，我们对该机制进行了全面而深入的总结，EDC的多元化发展，客观讨论每种方法的优缺点，以及基于EDC的生物传感器的应用。最后，还介绍了这个快速发展领域的挑战和前景。