Nanostructures synthesized using DNA-conjugated gold nanoparticles have a wide range of applications in the field of biosensorics. The stability of the DNA duplex plays a critical role as it determines the final geometry of these nanostructures. The main way to control DNA stability is to maintain a high ionic strength of the buffer solution; at the same time, high salt concentrations lead to an aggregation of nanoparticles. In this study, by means of the instrumentality of DNA-bridged seeds using tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane as a soft reducing agent the dumbbell-like gold nanoparticles up to 35 nm were synthesized with a high concentration of sodium ions of up to 100 mM and magnesium ions up to 1 mM. We also examined at the atomic level the details of the effect of the gold nanoparticle surface, as well as Na+ and Mg2+ ions, on the stability of nucleotide pairs located in close proximity to the grafting site.
DNA is a convenient and well-studied tool for nanostructures fabrication. Metal-mediated hybridization of DNA strands opens up new possibilities for nanobiotechnology. In this work, we studied the possibility of long DNA formation from short ones by gluing them through the formation of C-Ag+−C complexes. Such long formations were investigated using static light scattering and atomic force microscopy. It was found that the duplexes can efficiently be linked in the presence of silver ions if the length of the cytosine sequence exceeds 6 nucleobases.
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