Department of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Illinois Institute of Technology, 3101 South Dearborn Street, Chicago, Illinois 60616, United States.
J Phys Chem B. 2013 May 2;117(17):4763-9. doi: 10.1021/jp309541h. Epub 2013 Apr 23.
In this work, DNA-Hg(II) interactions were investigated by monitoring the translocation of DNA hairpins in a protein ion channel in the absence and presence of metal ions. Our experiments demonstrate that target-specific hairpin structures could be stabilized much more significantly by mercuric ions than by the stem length and the loop size of the hairpin due to the formation of Thymine-Hg(II)-Thymine complexes. In addition, the designed DNA probe allows the development of a highly sensitive nanopore sensor for Hg(2+) with a detection limit of 25 nM. Further, the sensor is specific, and other tested metal ions including Pb(2+), Cu(2+), Cd(2+), and so on with concentrations of up to 2 orders of magnitude greater than that of Hg(2+) would not interfere with the mercury detection.
在这项工作中，通过监测在缺乏和存在金属离子的情况下 DNA 发夹在蛋白质离子通道中的转位，研究了 DNA-Hg(II)相互作用。我们的实验表明，由于胸腺嘧啶-Hg(II)-胸腺嘧啶配合物的形成，靶特异性发夹结构可以比发夹的茎长和环大小更显著地被汞离子稳定。此外，所设计的 DNA 探针允许开发用于 Hg(2+)的高灵敏度纳米孔传感器，检测限为 25 nM。此外，该传感器具有特异性，并且其他测试的金属离子，包括 Pb(2+)、Cu(2+)、Cd(2+)等，浓度高达 Hg(2+)的两个数量级以上，不会干扰汞的检测。
