Thursday, 22nd November 2007 (2619 views)

Scientists in the US have developed a way of detecting an important copper ion more accurately using gold nanoparticles, it has emerged.

Researchers working at the University of Illinois have worked out a way to use a colour change that takes place in a solution of gold nanoparticles to detect the copper ion Cu more sensitively, in a new study published in the ChemComm journal, reports Chemical Science magazine.

Historically difficult for scientists to detect using conventional fluorescent sensors as it has a "quenching" effect on fluorophores, the copper ion can be sensed more effectively through the colour-changing properties of gold nanoparticles.

The technique uses a DNA enzyme, consisting of an enzyme strand and two DNA strands (DNAzyme) which are linked together when Cu is present.

This link - known as a ligation reaction - releases the strands from the DNAzyme, following which they chemically modify the gold nanoparticles causing them to change colour.

According to Yingfu Li from the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at McMaster University, Ontario, Canada, the research "will certainly get [scientists] even more interested in creating more and better DNAzymes for real-world applications".

Meanwhile, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have discovered a technique that uses gold nanoparticles to detect biomolecule reactions in a single living cell.

 

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