Abstract
DNA is considered as a useful building bio-material, and it serves as an efficient template to align functionalized nanomaterials. Riboflavin (RF)-doped synthetic double-crossover DNA (DX-DNA) lattices and natural salmon DNA (SDNA) thin films were constructed using substrate-assisted growth and drop-casting methods, respectively, and their topological, chemical and electro-optical characteristics were evaluated. The critical doping concentrations of RF ([RF]C, approx. 5 mM) at given concentrations of DX-DNA and SDNA were obtained by observing the phase transition (from crystalline to amorphous structures) of DX-DNA and precipitation of SDNA in solution above [RF]C. [RF]C are verified by analysing the atomic force microscopy images for DX-DNA and current, absorbance and photoluminescence (PL) for SDNA. We study the physical characteristics of RF-embedded SDNA thin films, using the Fourier transform infrared spectrum to understand the interaction between the RF and DNA molecules, current to evaluate the conductance, absorption to understand the RF binding to the DNA and PL to analyse the energy transfer between the RF and DNA. The current and UV absorption band of SDNA thin films decrease up to [RF]C followed by an increase above [RF]C. By contrast, the PL intensity illustrates the reverse trend, as compared to the current and UV absorption behaviour as a function of the varying [RF]. Owing to the intense PL characteristic of RF, the DNA lattices and thin films with RF might offer immense potential to develop efficient bio-sensors and useful bio-photonic devices.
Highlights
After the discovery of double-helical structures and evaluation of their intrinsic functions and properties, DNA molecules have attracted tremendous attention due to the programmability of the DNA base sequences that enables the design of various DNA nanostructures and applicability of DNA molecules to embed functionalized nanomaterials [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
Each DX tile had four 6 sticky ends which were preferentially bound to the complementary sticky ends in neighbouring DX tiles, aiding further assembly into DX-DNA lattices
A DNA lattice made of double-crossover tiles and DNA thin film extracted from salmon embedded with various concentrations of RF were fabricated via substrate-assisted growth and dropcasting methods, respectively, and their physical properties were studied
Summary
After the discovery of double-helical structures and evaluation of their intrinsic functions and properties, DNA molecules have attracted tremendous attention due to the programmability of the DNA base sequences that enables the design of various DNA nanostructures and applicability of DNA molecules to embed functionalized nanomaterials [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. The additional advantages of using DNA in constructing nanostructures and thin films with dimensional precision and fabrication of efficient devices or sensors with functional enhancement are due to the exceptional features of DNA molecules, i.e. efficient selfassembly and molecular recognition [9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. DNA can be functionalized with various types of ions, drugs, proteins and nanoparticles and this allows explicit functionalities for novel applications in conventional devices or sensors [16,17,18,19,20,21,22]. Riboflavin (RF) drug molecules have certain advantages for use in medical treatment as well as fabrication of bio-sensors and biophotonic devices due to the non-toxic, bio-compatible and significant luminescence. RF can serve as a biomarker for cancer therapeutics and as a bioactive molecule to sense optical signals due to conjugation characteristics with RF receptor proteins on a cancer cell and significant photoluminescence (PL) characteristics, respectively [25,26,27]
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