Article Title
Rapid, cost-effective DNA quantification via a visually-detectable aggregation of superparamagnetic silica-magnetite nanoparticles
Authors
Qian Liu, Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, McCormick Road, P. O. Box 400319, Charlottesville 22904, Virginia, USA
Center for Microsystems for the Life Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville 22904, Virginia, USA
Jingyi Li, Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, McCormick Road, P. O. Box 400319, Charlottesville 22904, Virginia, USA
Center for Microsystems for the Life Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville 22904, Virginia, USA
Hongxue Liu, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Virginia, P. O. Box 400745, 395 McCormick Road, Charlottesville 22904-4745, Virginia, USA
Ibrahim Tora, Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, McCormick Road, P. O. Box 400319, Charlottesville 22904, Virginia, USA
Matthew S. Ide, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Virginia. 123 Engineers’ Way, Charlottesville 22904, Virginia, USA
Jiwei Lu, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Virginia, P. O. Box 400745, 395 McCormick Road, Charlottesville 22904-4745, Virginia, USA
Robert J. Davis, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Virginia. 123 Engineers’ Way, Charlottesville 22904, Virginia, USA
David L. Green, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Virginia. 123 Engineers’ Way, Charlottesville 22904, Virginia, USA
James P. Landers, Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, McCormick Road, P. O. Box 400319, Charlottesville 22904, Virginia, USA
Department of Pathology, University of Virginia Health Science Center, Charlottesville 22908, Virginia, USA
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville 22904, Virginia, USA
Center for Microsystems for the Life Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville 22904, Virginia, USA
Keywords
silica/magnetite, core-shell, superparamagnetic, DNA quantification, polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
Abstract
DNA and silica-coated magnetic particles entangle and form visible aggregates under chaotropic conditions with a rotating magnetic field, in a manner that enables quantification of DNA by image analysis. As a means of exploring the mechanism of this DNA quantitation assay, nanoscale SiO2-coated Fe3O4 (Fe3O4@SiO2) particles are synthesized via a solvothermal method. Characterization of the particles defines them to be ~200 nm in diameter with a large surface area (141.89 m2/g), possessing superparamagnetic properties and exhibiting high saturation magnetization (38 emu/g). The synthesized Fe3O4@SiO2 nanoparticles are exploited in the DNA quantification assay and, as predicted, the nanoparticles provide better sensitivity than commercial microscale Dynabeads® for quantifying DNA, with a detection limit of 4 kilobase-pair fragments of human DNA. Their utility is proven using nanoparticle DNA quantification to guide efficient polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of short tandem repeat loci for human identification.
Graphical Abstract
Publisher
Tsinghua University Press
Recommended Citation
Qian Liu,Jingyi Li,Hongxue Liu,Ibrahim Tora,Matthew S. Ide,Jiwei Lu,Robert J. Davis,David L. Green,James P. Landers, Rapid, cost-effective DNA quantification via a visually-detectable aggregation of superparamagnetic silica-magnetite nanoparticles. NanoRes.2014, 7(5): 755–764
