Abstract
Here we describe a hybrid material composed of a single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) molecule, a 1.4 nm diameter gold nanoparticle, and a fluorophore that is highly quenched by the nanoparticle through a distance-dependent process. The fluorescence of this hybrid molecule increases by a factor of as much as several thousand as it binds to a complementary ssDNA. We show that this composite molecule is a different type of molecular beacon with a sensitivity enhanced up to 100-fold. In competitive hybridization assays, the ability to detect single mismatch is eightfold greater with this probe than with other molecular beacons.
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Acknowledgements
We thank G. Bonnet for enlightening discussions and suggestions, and for his help with the fluorescence correlation spectroscopy measurements. We thank R. Bar-Ziv, G.V. Shivashankar, T. Tomoda, and A. Mehta for interesting discussions. The help of A. Roll-Mecak and D. Stettler was instrumental in the final writing of this manuscript. We also thank the reviewers for improvement to the manuscript. This research was supported by the Mathers Foundation.
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Dubertret, B., Calame, M. & Libchaber, A. Single-mismatch detection using gold-quenched fluorescent oligonucleotides. Nat Biotechnol 19, 365–370 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/86762
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/86762
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