Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a useful technique for in vitro amplification of a DNA fragment. In this paper, a PCR procedure using Au nanoparticle (AuNP) -bound primers was systemically studied. The 5′-SH- (CH2)6-modified primers were covalently attached to the AuNP surface via Au-S bonds, and plasmid pBluescript SK was used as a template. The effects of the concentration of AuNP-bound primers, annealing temperature and PCR cy-cles were evaluated, respectively. The results indicate that PCR can proceed successfully under optimized condition, with either forward or reverse primers bound to the AuNP surface or with both the two primers bound to the AuNP surface. Development of PCR procedure based on AuNPs not only makes the isolation of PCR products very convenient, but also provides novel methods to prepare AuNP-bound ssDNA and nanostructured material.
SHEN Hebai HU Min YANG Zhongnan WANG Chen ZHU Longzhang
A novel artificial site specific cleavage reagent, with peptide nucleic acid (PNA) as sequence-recognizing moiety and cerium (IV) ions as “scissors” for cleaving target DNA, was synthesized. Subsequently, it was employed in the cleavage of target 26-mer single-stranded DNA (ssDNA), which has 10-mer sequence complementary with PNA recognizer in the hybrids, under physiological conditions. Reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatogram (RP- HPLC) experiments indicated that the artificial site specific cleavage reagent could cleave the target DNA specifically.
