Park Chanho, Park Hyunjun, You Juneseok, Na Sungsoo, Jang Kuewhan
Division of Foundry, Samsung Electronics, Hwaseong-si 18448, Korea.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Korea.
Materials (Basel). 2022 Sep 2;15(17):6113. doi: 10.3390/ma15176113.
With the development of nanotechnology, nanomaterials have been widely used in the development of commercial products. In particular, zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnONPs) have been of great interest due to their extraordinary properties, such as semiconductive, piezoelectric, and absorbance properties in UVA and UVB (280-400 nm) spectra. However, recent studies have investigated the toxicity of these ZnONPs; therefore, a ZnONP screening tool is required for human health and environmental problems. In this study, we propose a detection method for ZnONPs using quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and DNA. The detection method was based on the resonance frequency shift of the QCM. In detail, two different complementary DNA strands were used to conjugate ZnONPs, which were subjected to mass amplification. One of these DNA strands was designed to hybridize to a probe DNA immobilized on the QCM electrode. By introducing the ZnONP conjugation, we were able to detect ZnONPs with a detection limit of 100 ng/mL in both distilled water and a real sample of drinking water, which is 3 orders less than the reported critical harmful concentration of ZnONPs. A phosphate terminal group, which selectively interacts with a zinc oxide compound, was also attached at one end of a DNA linker and was attributed to the selective detection of ZnONPs. As a result, better selective detection of ZnONPs was achieved compared to gold and silicon nanoparticles. This work demonstrated the potential of our proposed method as a ZnONP screening tool in real environmental water systems.
随着纳米技术的发展，纳米材料已广泛应用于商业产品的开发。特别是氧化锌纳米颗粒（ZnONPs）因其具有非凡的性能，如半导体性能、压电性能以及在UVA和UVB（280 - 400 nm）光谱中的吸收性能，而备受关注。然而，最近的研究调查了这些ZnONPs的毒性；因此，针对人类健康和环境问题，需要一种ZnONPs筛选工具。在本研究中，我们提出了一种使用石英晶体微天平（QCM）和DNA检测ZnONPs的方法。该检测方法基于QCM的共振频率偏移。具体而言，使用两条不同的互补DNA链来共轭ZnONPs，使其进行质量放大。其中一条DNA链被设计用于与固定在QCM电极上的探针DNA杂交。通过引入ZnONP共轭，我们能够在蒸馏水和实际饮用水样本中检测出浓度低至100 ng/mL的ZnONPs，这比报道的ZnONPs临界有害浓度低3个数量级。一个磷酸末端基团选择性地与氧化锌化合物相互作用，该基团也连接在DNA接头的一端，这有助于对ZnONPs进行选择性检测。结果，与金纳米颗粒和硅纳米颗粒相比，实现了对ZnONPs更好的选择性检测。这项工作证明了我们所提出的方法作为实际环境水系统中ZnONPs筛选工具的潜力。
