Syntheses of nucleic acid mimics designed for metal-induced strand formation on DNA

Aptamer-based colorimetric sensing of acetamiprid in soil samples: sensitivity, selectivity and mechanism

A simple and selective aptamer-based colorimetric method was developed for highly sensitive detection of acetamiprid, taking advantages of the sensitive target-induced colour changes that arisen from the interparticle plasmon coupling during the aggregation of Au nanoparticles (NPs). The results showed that the established method could be applied to detect acetamiprid in the linear range between 75 nM to 7.5 μM, with a low detection limit of 5 nM. Meanwhile, by employing an "artificial antibody" acetamiprid-binding aptamer (ABA) as recognition element, highly selective and specific colorimetric visualization of acetamiprid was obtained. It indicated that pesticides which may coexist with acetamiprid could not interfere with the detection of acetamiprid even that had similar structure with acetamiprid, such as imidacloprid and chlorpyrifos. Mechanism study suggested that it could be attributed to the specific supramolecular interaction between ABA and acetamiprid, as well as the resulted target-binding event induced conformation changes of ABA from random coil to hairpin structure. The practical application of the colorimetric method was realized for detecting acetamiprid in real soil samples and monitoring its natural degradation process.

Electron transfer processes in DNA: mechanisms, biological relevance and applications in DNA analytics

In principle, DNA-mediated charge transfer processes can be categorized as oxidative hole transfer and reductive electron transfer. With respect to the routes of DNA damage most of the past research has been focused on the investigation of oxidative hole transfer or transport. On the other hand, the transport or transfer of excess electrons has a large potential for biomedical applications, mainly for DNA chip technology.

Artificial nucleosides possessing metal binding sites at the 3'- and 5'-positions of the deoxyribose moieties

This paper describes a convenient synthetic procedure for nucleoside mimics, 1-6, in which the 3',5'-hydroxy groups of natural 2'-deoxythymidine or 2'-deoxyadenosine are replaced by thiol, amine, or alkylthiol groups. Such nucleosides would be built up into a single DNA strand with cooperative participation of metal coordination, where internucleoside linkages are replaced by metal complexation motifs. The X-ray crystal structure and complexation behaviors of 3',5'-dithiothymidine, 1, with Au(I) are also reported.