Study of DNA interaction with cobalt ferrite nanoparticles

Interaction of cobalt ferrite nanopowder and nucleic acid was investigated. Superparamagnetic cobalt ferrite nanoparticles (6-12 nm) were prepared by mechanochemical synthesis. Structure of the nanopowder was characterized using X-ray diffraction. It was shown that cobalt ferrite nanoparticles were associated with ssDNA and dsDNA in Tris-buffer resulting in bionanocomposite formation with mass weight relation nanoparticles: DNA 1:(0.083 +/- 0.003) and 1:(0.075 +/- 0.003) respectively. The mechanism of interaction between a DNA and cobalt ferrite nanoparticles was considered basing on the whole set of obtained data: FTIR-spectroscopy, analyzing desorption of DNA from the surface of the particles while changing the chemical content of the medium, and on the modeling interaction of specific biomolecule fragments with surface of a inorganic material. It was supposed that the linkage was based on coordination interaction of the phosphate groups and oxygen atoms heterocyclic bases of DNA with metal ions on the particle surface. These data can be used to design specific magnetic DNA-nanoparticles hybrid structures.