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Updated: Jun 12, 2026
Modified Terminal Restriction Fragment Analysis for Quantifying Telomere Length Using In-gel Hybridization
Published on: July 10, 2017
Monitoring human telomere DNA hybridization and G-quadruplex formation using gold nanorods
Xin-Chun Gou1, Jun Liu, Hao-Li Zhang
1State Key Laboratory of Applied Organic Chemistry, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lanzhou University, 222, Tianshui South Road, Lanzhou 730000, China.
Abstract:
A facile and multi-response strategy for studying the transformations of human telomere DNA from single strand (ss) to double strand (ds) and G-quadruplex has been established by using positively charged gold nanorod (AuNR) as an optical label. The conformation change information of the telomere DNA was transferred into multiple optical signals, including changes in fluorescence emission, near infrared (NIR) absorption, plasma resonance light scattering (PRLS) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) response. The formations of dsDNA and G-quadruplex DNA induced fluorescence quenching of dye on DNA, and were accompanied by the intensity decrease and blue shift of the longitudinal absorption peak of AuNRs. Meanwhile, PRLS and DLS results revealed slightly increased AuNR aggregation due to increased charge density of dsDNA and G-quadruplex DNA as compared to ssDNA. Control experiment suggests that the AuNR-based assay is highly sequence specific; and the high sensitivity allows the study of human telomere DNA at a concentration as low as 58 nM.
