The ongoing discoveries of RNA modalities (for example, non-coding, micro and enhancer) have resulted in an increased desire for detecting, sequencing and identifying RNA segments for applications in food safety, water and environmental protection, plant and animal pathology, clinical diagnosis and research, and bio-security. Here, we demonstrate that single-molecule conductance techniques can be used to extract biologically relevant information from short RNA oligonucleotides, that these measurements are sensitive to attomolar target concentrations, that they are capable of being multiplexed, and that they can detect targets of interest in the presence of other, possibly interfering, RNA sequences. We also demonstrate that the charge transport properties of RNA:DNA hybrids are sensitive to single-nucleotide polymorphisms, thus enabling differentiation between specific serotypes of Escherichia coli. Using a combination of spectroscopic and computational approaches, we determine that the conductance sensitivity primarily arises from the effects that the mutations have on the conformational structure of the molecules, rather than from the direct chemical substitutions. We believe that this approach can be further developed to make an electrically based sensor for diagnostic purposes.

RNA形式（例如非编码，微和增强子）的不断发现导致人们越来越需要检测，测序和鉴定RNA片段，以用于食品安全，水和环境保护，动植物病理学，临床诊断研究，生物安全。在这里，我们证明了单分子电导技术可用于从短RNA寡核苷酸中提取生物学相关信息，这些测量值对阿托莫耳靶标浓度敏感，它们能够被多路复用，并且它们可以检测感兴趣的靶标。其他可能干扰的RNA序列的存在。我们还证明了RNA：DNA杂化物的电荷传输特性对单核苷酸多态性敏感，大肠杆菌。通过结合使用光谱学和计算方法，我们确定电导灵敏度主要是由突变对分子构象结构的影响引起的，而不是直接化学取代引起的。我们相信，可以进一步开发这种方法来制造用于诊断目的的基于电的传感器。