NanoCluster Beacon - A New Molecular Probe for Homogeneous Detection of Nucleic Acid Targets
Abstract
Oligonucleotide-templated nanoclusters consisting of a few atoms of silver (DNA/Ag NCs) have been made into a new molecular probe that lights up upon target DNA binding, termed a NanoCluster Beacon (NCB). We discovered that interactions between silver nanoclusters and a proximal, guaninerich DNA strand can lead to tremendous red fluorescence enhancement [1]. Here we show that dark silver nanoclusters templated on an ssDNA can be lit up into a palette of colors (green, yellow/orange, and red) by employing different proximal sequences, potentially enabling the use of NCBs in multiplexed assays. We tested a suite of nanocluster-nucleation sequences and found the sequences that created strong red fluorescence enhancement share a common 5 -C3NNNNNC4 motif, where N is either a thymine (T) or an adenine (A) base. We optimized the design of NCBs by testing the effect of different lengths of an interaction stem. The highest signal-to-background (S/B) ratio, 175, was achieved when the stem length was 3 base pairs long.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA633383
Entities
People
- Hsin-chih Yeh
- James H. Werne
- Jason J. Han
- Jaswinder Sharma
- Jennifer S. Martinez
Organizations
- Los Alamos National Laboratory