Development of Peptide Nucleic Acid Assemblies for Application in Drug Delivery and Molecular Sensing

摘要

We employ this robust PNA/LNA duplex in the temperature-controlled selective functionalization of arrayed nanoplates (Figure2). The ultimate goal of this technology is for the detection of microRNAs (miRNAs), short strands of RNA that combine with and inhibit complementary messenger RNA. [4-6] MicroRNAs are involved in the regulation of many cellular processes, and miRNA expression has been linked to certain disease states in various types of cancers. [7-10] It would therefore be highly desirable to rapidly detect the presence of many different miRNA sequences at one time, in order to investigate the roles of specific miRNAs in disease states and to diagnose early cancerous disease states in a clinical setting. In our work we perform a heat-mediated exchange reaction on the device surface in which a competing LNA strand invades an existing PNA/LNA duplex to form a more robust product. This exchange will also introduce new functionality to the device surface, allowing it to detect the presence of a specific miRNA sequence. We have successfully performed this exchange reaction on a single nanoplate device in the presence of other nanoplates by the selective heating of the device.