Peptide nucleic acids as tools for single-molecule sequence detection and manipulation

Nano Lett. 2010 Nov 10;10(11):4697-701. doi: 10.1021/nl102986v.

Abstract

The ability to strongly and sequence-specifically attach modifications such as fluorophores and haptens to individual double-stranded (ds) DNA molecules is critical to a variety of single-molecule experiments. We propose using modified peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) for this purpose and implement them in two model single-molecule experiments where individual DNA molecules are manipulated via microfluidic flow and optical tweezers, respectively. We demonstrate that PNAs are versatile and robust sequence-specific tethers.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Base Sequence
  • Micromanipulation / methods*
  • Molecular Probe Techniques*
  • Molecular Probes / chemistry
  • Molecular Probes / isolation & purification*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Optical Tweezers*
  • Peptide Nucleic Acids / chemistry
  • Peptide Nucleic Acids / isolation & purification*
  • Sequence Analysis, DNA / methods*

Substances

  • Molecular Probes
  • Peptide Nucleic Acids