Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 13.3.
VoltammetrichybridizationdetectionwithMBhybridization
indicator.
Peptide nucleic acid (PNA) is a structural DNA analogue con-
taining an uncharged
N
-(2-aminoethyl) glycine-based pseudopep-
tide backbone, which has been reported to form Watson-Crick
complementary duplexes with DNA. PNA, originally synthesized
as a gene-targeting antisense drug, has demonstrated remarkable
hybridization properties toward complementary oligonucleotides.
Compared to DNA duplexes, PNA hybrids have higher thermal
stability and can be formed at low ionic strengths. The neutral
peptide-like backbone of PNA provides the basis for the probe
to hybridize to target DNA sequences with high a
nity and
specificity [62-63]. Due to these opportunities of PNA molecules,
our group used PNA for hybridization and mismatch detection
in the presence of MB indicator. Short oligonucleotides of PNA
sequences were immobilized onto mercury and carbon electrodes
[64] electrostatically and onto Au electrode by SAM method [65].
