Catalytic DNA, aptamers, and gold nanoparticles
Juewen
Liu
Department
of
Chemistry
University
of
Waterloo
Wednesday,
November
3,
2021
3:00
p.m.
Online
via
Microsoft
Teams
Please
contact
gwc@uoguelph.ca
with
your
Teams
ID/email
address
to
attend
the
seminars.
All
are
welcome
to
attend!
ABSTRACT: While DNA is known for its function as a genetic material, since the early 1990s, DNA was found to also possess chemical functions such as ligand binding and catalysis, and such functional DNA molecules are called aptamersand catalytic DNA (DNAzymes), respectively. Catalytic DNA and aptamershave been extensively used to develop biosensors. Interfacing DNA with gold nanoparticles has been a very popular method for the design of both fluorescent and colorimetric biosensors. We found that the adsorption of DNA on gold nanoparticles to be extremely strong, such as the adsorbed DNA, loses its ability to hybridize. In addition, the adsorption of target molecules on gold nanoparticles needs to be considered. Finally, we found that some reported aptamersactually cannot bind their claimed targets, and they can be attributed to the neglected target/gold surface interactions during the binding assays.