IEC 221 |
| Brent S. Gaylord1, Alan J. Heeger2, Bin Liu3, Shu Wang3, Chunhai Fan3, and Guillermo C. Bazan3. (1) Materials Department, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5050, (2) Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, (3) Departments of Chemistry and Materials, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5050 |
| Conjugated polymers have shown the ability to serve as highly responsive optical reporters for chemical and biological targets. We demonstrate the ability to use the light-harvesting properties of these materials for highly sensitive, strand specific DNA detection. Cationic polyfluorene and oligofluorene compounds were used as fluorescent donors in a novel energy transfer assay where signal transduction in aqueous media was controlled by specific electrostatic interactions. The fluorescence of commonly used small molecule dye acceptors (such as fluorescein) attached to a specific oligonucleotide sequence can be amplified as much as 25 times by energy transfer from the conjugated polymer allowing detection of a specific DNA target sequence at concentrations of 10 pM with a basic fluorometer. Comparisons in sensitivity and simplicity will be made to current DNA technologies to highlight the potential advantages of this new method. Further experiments examine the effect of single DNA base pair mismatches on sensor selectivity. |
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Biological Applications of Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology (sponsored by Advanced Materials & Nanotechnology Subdivision)
1:30 PM-4:50 PM, Wednesday, March 26, 2003 Convention Center -- Room 393, Oral
Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry |