Quaternized chitosan particles as ion exchange supports for label-free DNA detection using PNA probe and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry.

Quaternized chitosan particles are introduced as anion-exchanged captures to be used with a conformationally constrained pyrrolidinyl peptide nucleic acid (acpcPNA) and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry for DNA sequence analysis. Methylated chitosan (MC) and methylated N-benzyl chitosan (MBzC) particles were obtained by heterogeneous chemical modification of ionically cross-linked chitosan particles via direct methylation and reductive benzylation/methylation, respectively. N,N,N-trimethylchitosan (TMC) and N-[(2-hydroxyl-3-trimethylammonium)propyl]chitosan chloride (HTACC) particles were prepared by ionic cross-linking of quaternized chitosan derivatives, homogeneously modified from chitosan, namely TMC and HTACC, respectively. The particles formed had a size in a sub-micrometer range and possessed positive charge. Investigation by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry suggested that some quaternized particles in combination with acpcPNA were capable of detecting a single mismatched base out of 9-14 base DNA sequences. Potential application of this technique for the detection of wild-type and mutant K-ras DNA, a gene that mutation is associated with certain cancers, has also been demonstrated.