Wei Han, Peiyuan Wei, Lei Wang, Guangshan Zhu, Lingling Xie, Limin Zhu, Baoshan He, Xiaobo Ji, Xiaoyu Cao
DNA hydrogels are promising platforms for portable biosensing, but their combination with high-activity catalytic nanomaterials remains hindered by interfacial incompatibility and inconsistent device-level retention. Here, a tube-anchored hydrogel microreactor is developed, coupling Co-Ni dual-atom nanozymes (CoNi DANs), interfacial stabilization, and CRISPR-triggered release within a standard centrifuge tube. CoNi DANs are synthesized on a defect-rich nitrogen-doped carbon scaffold, achieving high metal loading and improved peroxidase-like activity relative to those of their single-atom counterparts. Carboxymethyl cellulose-mediated interfacial stabilization then suppresses CoNi DAN aggregation through electrostatic complementarity and polymeric steric shielding, enabling uniform dispersion of CoNi DANs within the DNA hydrogel. A polydopamine-based dual-anchoring strategy further combines covalent grafting with sequence-specific DNA hybridization, providing a chemically reinforced hydrogel-device interface. Upon target recognition, CRISPR/Cas12a trans-cleavage activity induces controlled hydrogel degradation and on-demand release of CoNi DANs for colorimetric and electrochemical dual-mode readout. Using atrazine as a proof-of-concept analyte, the platform achieves limits of detection of 6.1 and 2.1 pg mL-1 for colorimetric and electrochemical modes, respectively, with satisfactory recoveries in real samples. A smartphone-assisted digital readout module further improves the portability of the colorimetric mode. The dual-interface design, uniting material-level compatibilization with device-level dual-anchoring, provides a generalizable framework for embedding high-activity nanozymes into responsive DNA hydrogel microreactors for portable on-site biosensing.