title: Hydration induced stress on DNA monolayers grafted on microcantilevers.
abstract: Surface tethered single-stranded DNA films are relevant biorecognition layers for oligonucleotide sequence identification. Also, hydration induced effects on these films have proven useful for the nanomechanical detection of DNA hybridization. Here, we apply nanomechanical sensors and atomic force microscopy to characterize in air and upon varying relative humidity conditions the swelling and deswelling of grafted single stranded and double stranded DNA films. The combination of these techniques validates a two-step hybridization process, where complementary strands first bind to the surface tethered single stranded DNA probes and then slowly proceed to a fully zipped configuration. Our results also demonstrate that, despite the slow hybridization kinetics observed for grafted DNA onto microcantilever surfaces, ex situ sequence identification does not require hybridization times typically longer than 1 h, while quantification is a major challenge.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Microelectrónica de Madrid, IMM-CNM (CSIC), 28760 Tres Cantos, Spain.
authors.forename: Carmen M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Domínguez
authors.forename: Priscila M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Kosaka
authors.forename: Guillermo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mokry
authors.forename: Valerio
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Pini
authors.forename: Oscar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Malvar
authors.forename: Mercedes
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: del Rey
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ramos
authors.forename: Alvaro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: San Paulo
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tamayo
authors.forename: Montserrat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Calleja
mesh_terms: D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry*; D006813:Humidity; D007700:Kinetics; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force; D036103:Nanotechnology; D013499:Surface Properties; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D014867:Water; D004247:DNA