Stimuli-Responsive Disassembly of Nanoparticle Aggregates for Light- Up Colorimetric Sensing

Abstract

Controlled assembly of nanomaterials has been the focus of much research. In contrast, controlled disassembly has not received much attention, even though both processes have been shown to be important in biology. By using a Pb(2+)-dependent RNA-cleaving DNAzyme, we demonstrate here control of the disassembly of gold nanoparticle aggregates in response to Pb(2+). In the process, we show that nanoparticle alignment plays an important role in the disassembly process, with the tail-to-tail configuration being the most optimal, probably because of the large steric hindrance of other configurations. The rate of disassembly is significantly accelerated by using small pieces of DNA to invade the cleaved substrate of the DNAzyme. Investigation of such a controlled disassembly process allows the transformation of previously designed "light-down" colorimetric Pb(2+) sensors into "light-up" sensors.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 2005
Accession Number
ADA459362

Entities

People

  • Juewen Liu
  • Yi Lu

Organizations

  • University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Sensors

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Advanced Materials
  • Assembly
  • Chemical Compounds
  • Chemical Kinetics
  • Chemistry
  • Detectors
  • Disassembly
  • Enzymes
  • Kinetics
  • Materials
  • Materials Science
  • Metallic Nanoparticles
  • Nanomaterials
  • Nanoparticles
  • Nucleic Acids
  • Substrates
  • Three Dimensional

Readers

  • Nanocomposite Materials Science

Technology Areas

  • Biotechnology