Experimental study of filling carbon nanotubes with nucleic acids

Abstract

AbstractEncapsulation of DNA molecules inside carbon nanotubes (CNT) in water were performed under the conditions of 400K and 3Bar. Double stranded DNAs of 2kb and 400bp in length, and single stranded oligonucleotides of 60bp in length were selected as target molecules. Au and Pt nanoparticles and fluorescent dye Cy3 were used as tags. Agarose gel electrophoresis was used to remove DNA molecules attached on the outside walls of CNTs. Laser confocal microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX) were employed to confirm the encapsulation process. The results demonstrated that DNA molecules attached to the outside of CNTs can be removed by electrophoresis. Confocal microscopy and HR-TEM observations as well as EDX analysis confirmed that the Cy3-labelled DNA molecules, Au-labelled oligonucleotides and Pt-labelled DNA fragments can indeed be encapsulated inside CNTs. These experimental results support our earlier molecular dynamics simulations on encapsulating oligonucleotides inside CNTs. The DNA-CNT hybrids could be further explored for potential applications in bio-nanotechnology.