Synthesis of DNA-organic molecule-DNA triblock oligomers using the amide coupling reaction and their enzymatic amplification

J Am Chem Soc. 2008 Oct 1;130(39):12854-5. doi: 10.1021/ja8044458. Epub 2008 Sep 3.

Abstract

Precise electrical contact between single-molecule and electrodes is a first step to study single-molecule electronics and its application such as (bio)sensors and nanodevices. To realize a reliable electrical contact, we can use DNA as a template in the field of nanoelectronics because of its micrometer-scaled length with the thickness of nanometer-scale. In this paper, we studied the reactivity of the amide-coupling reaction to tether oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) to organic molecules and the elongation of the ODNs by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to synthesize 1.5 kbp dsDNA-organic molecule-1.5 kbp dsDNA (DOD) triblock architecture. The successful amide-coupling reactions were confirmed by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), and the triblock architectures were characterized by 1% agarose gel electrophoresis and atomic force microscope (AFM). Our result shows that this strategy is simple and makes it easy to construct DNA-organic molecule-DNA triblock architectures and potentially provides a platform to prepare and investigate single molecule electronics.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Amides / chemistry*
  • Bacteriophage lambda / chemistry
  • Bacteriophage lambda / genetics
  • DNA / chemical synthesis
  • DNA / chemistry*
  • DNA, Viral / chemistry
  • Microelectrodes
  • Nanostructures / chemistry
  • Oligonucleotides / chemical synthesis
  • Oligonucleotides / chemistry*
  • Polymerase Chain Reaction / methods*

Substances

  • Amides
  • DNA, Viral
  • Oligonucleotides
  • DNA