Having conducted global aggregation of gold to DNA origami and acheived some success I am now interested in pursuing site specific attachment. I am looking through the literature and have found some interesting potential routes to functionalise gold np's with specific oligos (My current favourite see attached).
Does anyone whos conducted a project of this kind before have any advice of avenues to pursue or challenges I am likely to face? Any and all advice is welcome.
Thanks for your time.
Simon Butler
Article A DNA-based method for rationally assembling nanoparticles i...
Prepare to be frustrated...
I worked functionalising both silver and gold nanoparticles with DNA and found that it can be tricky to get it working. The Mirkin paper is the original but I would go with http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja3014055 . They use pH control to attach as many oligos as possible onto the nps. Works much better (from experience).
Be careful with the sequences that you use. You want them to hybridise to the target but if they have a significant degree of self-complementarity they will also hybridise to themselves.
Good luck!
Hi David. This paper looks very promising.
In regards to sequence self-complementarity I believe I'm somewhat limited due to my insertion sequences being defined by points on a larger scaffold strand of fixed non repeating sequence. However if this does present problems I have another paper which described linker sequences facilitating attachment of oligo bound np's into another DNA structure.
At this point I think I'd feel like something was very wrong if I wasn't frustrated at least once at a new stage of my project.
Thanks! Very helpful.
Hi again David
I'm looking at purchasing thiol bound strands (Ive gone for a sequence of 15 Ts/As respectively as an attachment by the way following your advice somewhat) do you have any advice about a reduction protocol or whether its better to find a company where thiols are shipped frozen possibly? (I use IDT to buy DNA stuff. Their thiols need to be reduced before use) Apparently incubation in TCEP for 24hours is possible? But I'm uncertain if conducting my own reduction protocol will affect yield?
Thanks for your time
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