High-efficient nucleic acid separation from animal tissue samples via surface modified magnetic nanoparticles

Abstract

High efficiency nucleic acid (NA) separation via magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) is a promising technology for bioengineering, healthcare, etc. Aimed to enhance the selection of MNPs and illustrate the separation mechanism for effective isolation of NAs from complex animal samples, this study fabricated hydroxy-, amino- and carboxyl-functionalized MNPs (MNPs-OH, MNPs-NH2 and MNPs-COOH) with different particle sizes to investigate the hybrid NA separation performance from animal tissue samples. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation was introduced to predict the affinity action of MNPs with NA and typical impurities. The details of the kinetic separation behavior and the NA separation performance were then illustrated. MD simulation results showed MNPs-NH2 had a stronger affinity with NA, and in most experimental separation systems, NA separation yield via three kinds of MNPs showed a following order of MNPs-NH2 > MNPs-OH > MNPs-COOH. MNPs of different sizes had significantly different sedimentation and dispersion features, leading to diverse separation results. Combining with the proper lysis system, an optimized NA separation method at room temperature with high-throughput and low contamination risk was developed as a promising approach for large-scale samples extracted NA simultaneously. This work could provide a theoretical guidance for the fabrication strategy of advanced MNPs and the enhancement of NA separation from complex samples.