Use of oligonucleotides conjugated to gold nanoparticles and streptavidin for amplification of optical biosensor signal during detection of telomeric repeats.

Hybridization of telomeric repeats with a complementary oligonucleotide probe was studied by the surface plasmon resonance method. Conjugation of the probe with streptavidin and gold nanoparticles was shown to amplify the signal at similar concentrations of this probe (by 60 and 300 times, respectively). Nanoparticles can be used for biosensor signal amplification in studying the telomerase activity of malignant cells.