Figure 3: Nanomotor racing for quantitative nucleic acid detection.

Motion-based DNA detection of different levels of synthetic target (a) and of E. coli 16S rRNA (b) corresponding to different cell concentrations (CFU, colony-forming units). Optical images superimposed with straight-line track lines illustrating the distance travelled by the corresponding Au–Ni–Au–Pt nanomotors over a 4 s period.