A pH-responsive DNA nanomachine-controlled catalytic assembly of gold nanoparticles

作者：Dongbao Yao, Hui Li, Yijun Guo, Xiang Zhou, Shiyan Xiao, Haojun Liang · 发表于：Chemical Communications · 年份：2016 · DOI：10.1039/c6cc03089k · 被引用次数：41 · 研究领域：Advanced biosensing and bioanalysis techniques、Gold and Silver Nanoparticles Synthesis and Applications、Nanocluster Synthesis and Applications

The toehold-mediated DNA-strand-displacement reaction has unique programmable properties for driving the catalytic assembly of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). Herein, we introduced a pH-responsive triplex structure into the DNA-strand-displacement-based catalytic assembly system of DNA-AuNPs to add an additional controlling factor, namely the pH. In this catalytic system, the aggregation rate of AuNPs could be regulated by both internal factors (concentrations of substrate, target, etc.) and an external control (pH gradient). This strategy can be used to construct pH-induced DNA logic gates and sophisticated DNA networks as well as to image instantaneous pH changes in living cells.