Monday, 3rd April 2006 (4032 views)

Researchers in Canada have succeeded in producing specific, periodic three-dimensional nanostructures from single strands of DNA together with gold nanoparticles.

A team led by Michael A Brook and Yingfu Li carried out a duplication technique called "rolling circle amplification" – or the "hula-hoop" technique to laypeople.

A ring of single-stranded DNA is read by a polymerase enzyme, which builds and separates a fresh DNA strand with a repeating pattern.

The scientists then attached short DNA fragments to gold nanoparticles with a diameter of 15 nm. Rings of DNA were then hooked on a hula-hoop-capable form of polymerase added, resulting in long DNA chains hanging from gold particle spheres.

It was demonstrated that these were good scaffolds for 3D structures by way of adding further, smaller gold particles, also with short DNA segments. The fragments docked onto the larger structure because their sequence was complementary to one region of the repeated sequence of the long DNA chains.

The scientists believe the technology could be used in nanocomputers, nanocircuits and biosensors.

The technique was published in the Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2006.

 

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