Gold nanoparticles for the bare-eye based and spectrophotometric detection of proteins, polynucleotides and DNA

摘要

We have explored the potential of using gold nanoparticles (Au-NPs) in optical and bare-eye discrimination of (a) proteins (such as bovine serum albumin and lysozyme), (b) homo-polynucleotides (such as poly-adenylic acid, poly-cytidylic acid, poly-uridylic acid and poly-inosinic acid), and (c) long chain DNA (from salmon, herring and thym). Such biomacromolecules can be detected and discriminated due to their ability to prevent the formation of blue aggregates from red (non-aggregated) citrate capped Au-NPs on addition of NaCl. The effect of these biomacromolecules on the aggregation was investigated by colorimetry and UV-vis spectrometry. The results show that the two proteins can be differentiated by colorimetry, and also salmon ssDNA and dsDNA. The Au-NPs can also discriminate the dsDNAs of salmon and herring. We conclude that the use of Au-NPs represent a viable candidate to future methods of DNA analysis on the basis of visual testing, particularly in the area of food analysis.