Biomimetic Particles for DNA Immobilization
Heloísa Rosa and Ana Maria Carmona-Ribeiro
Departamento de Bioquímica, Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
DNA immobilized on particles is becoming increasingly important for biotechnological applications such as production of hybridization kits, gene therapy with DNA delivery to cells, infection diagnostics; detection of microbial resistance to antibiotics in clinical samples and production of DNA chips among many others. Here immobilization of lambda-bacteriophage DNA onto polystyrene microspheres covered with a dioctadecyldimethylammonium bromide (DODAB) bilayer is characterized by means of dynamic light scattering and zeta-potential analysis. DODAB bilayer fragments were obtained by sonication with macrotip, sulfate polystyrene (PSS) microspheres with 301 nm mean diameter were purchased from Interfacial Dynamics Corporation (Portland, OR) and l-DNA was from Sigma. At room temperature, PSS microspheres (2.5x109 particles/mL) and DODAB bilayer fragments (0.03 mM) interacted for 1 h at 25oC. Thereafter, l-DNA was added over a range of concentrations (1-20 microgram/mL) and mean zeta-average diameter (Dz) or zeta-potentials were determined as a function of DNA concentration. From 0-4 microgram/mL DNA, the particles were still positively charged and stable with sizes remaining close to 300 nm. Around 5 microgram/mL DNA, particles show zeta-potentials close to zero and they aggregate. At and above 6 microgram/mL DNA, there is charge reversal and the particulate becomes negatively charged but stable with reduced mean diameters (320-360 nm). Over the 6-9 microgram/mL DNA, the system was remarkably homodisperse resembling the low polydispersity of latex samples. The novel system will possibly find many uses in strategical applications.
Supported by CNPq and FAPESP.
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