RNA detection has become an integral part of current biomedical research. Up to now, the reverse transcription-PCR has been the most practical method to detect mRNA targets. However, RNA detection by reverse transcription-PCR requires sophisticated equipment and it is highly sensitive to contamination with genomic DNA. Here we report a new isothermal reaction to simultaneously amplify and detect RNA, based on cleavage by DNAzyme and signal amplification. Cleavage-based signal amplification of

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... A cannot be contaminated by genomic DNA and is suitable for the detection of both mRNA and microRNA targets, with high specificity and sensitivity. Moreover, the detection results can be reported in a colorimetric or real-time fluorometric way for different detection purposes. Supplementary Information accompanies this paper at http://www.nature.com/ naturecommunications Competing financial interests: The authors declare no competing financial interests. Reprints and permission information is available online at http://npg.nature.com/ reprintsandpermissions/ How to cite this article: Zhao, Y. et al. Cleavage-based signal amplification of RNA.