Weakly charged cationic nanoparticles induce DNA bending and strand separation.
Weakly charged cationic nanoparticles cause structural changes including local denaturing and compaction to DNA under mild conditions. The charged ligands bind to the phosphate backbone of DNA and the uncharged ligands penetrate the helix and disrupt base pairing. Mobility shifts in electrophoresis, molecular dynamics, and UV-vis spectrophotometry give clues to the details of the interactions.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA.
Justin G
JG
Railsback
Abhishek
A
Singh
Ryan C
RC
Pearce
Timothy E
TE
McKnight
Ramón
R
Collazo
Zlatko
Z
Sitar
Yaroslava G
YG
Yingling
Anatoli V
AV
Melechko
D002412:Cations / Q000737:chemistry; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry*; D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D009691:Nucleic Acid Denaturation; D013056:Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet
D002412:Cations; D006046:Gold; D004247:DNA